Caption: CN wooden flanger 56414 is shown parked on a siding by the freight shed near the station in Owen Sound in 1958. The "LU 11-56" stenciling on her sides below the weight denotes the shop code for London (LU) and November 1956. Like snowplows and Jordan spreaders, CN kept flangers stationed at various points across the system in order to clear snow and ice from between the flangeways. Most of CN's old flangers were home-built from wooden boxcars or flatcars, with flanger blades added between the trucks and a cupola on the roof for better operating crew visibility (lineside signs noted to crews when to raise the blades to clear obstructions present between the tracks like switches, bridge guides and railway crossings).

Their use diminished over time, and old wooden ones eventually gave way to newer flangers CN converted from steel boxcars. Many snowplows had their own sets of flanger blades mounted between the trucks under the body, or a hinged flanger tip at the front of the snowplow blade.