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Caption: Second chances don't happen often in this hobby, especially when it comes to an aging locomotive fleet, however those rules didn't apply to CP's veteran MLW's in the mid 1990's. Even after CP president Rob Ritchie officially ended the era after a ceremony in St. Luc, Quebec, where he personally shut down M636 4706 on December 23, 1993 the almost unthinkable happened. Due to traffic demands and an unprecedented motive power shortage in 1994, CP was forced to reactivate several of their retired MLW's and pressed them back into active service where they would continue until 1995. Here, M636 4712's multi-mark still looks great in the early morning light as a diesel hostler prepares to switch-out units for that day's assigned trains from Toronto yard. The unit's pictured include a GP9u, SD40-2 6036 and HLCX 6365. CP 4712 had been previously retired in 1993, then was un-retired in April 1994. Two months after this photo, 4712 would be officially retired and eventually scrapped without ceremony this time around.
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Who knew there were second-gen diesels that could make SD40-2s look small?
@ dhaisell- Yes, the Big M’s were certainly beasts. Thanks for the comment.
I recall one trip on train 505 out of Toronto for London, we had two resurrected “Big Ms”. They had new air filters & were clean looking. We had close to tonnage for the hill at Guelph Jct, and they walked them up there as if we were 1,000 tons under tonnage. It was almost as if they were under maintained before their first demise.