Caption: The Nackawic Turn is close to its home terminal in Fredericton, New Brunswick, on a beautiful afternoon in March 1985. It is about to pass the site of the former CNR Fredericton station on the engineer's side of the tracks.

C-424 4218 was built in Montreal, Quebec, by MLW and delivered as the 8318 on Tuesday, October 5, 1965, with serial 84856. The CPR received trade-in credit with the return of Alco FB-1 4402 on Thursday, July 8. The unit was part of 32 unit order 4905, class DRF-24b, built between March and December 1965. Their delivery was followed immediately by order 4906 for 18 units of class DRF-24c. MLW built these without trade-ins from December 1965 through March 1966. CPR initially used the C-424s on priority freights, notably on the Eastern Region, as St. Luc was their original maintenance assignment. When they were new, I often saw them on Windsor - Montreal hotshots in combination with the nearly new GP35s, which had proven slippery. CPR quickly renumbered the units in the 4200 series. Retirement, conversion or sale came to the C-424s before 1996; however, the 4218 was not one of the 31 survivors. It was tied up unserviceable on Thursday, March 23, 1995, retired on April Fools Day and sold to MetRecy in Laval, Quebec for $8,750 on Wednesday, June 21.

The Nackawic Turn left Fredericton weekday mornings with traffic for the paper mill at Nackawic on the north side of the Saint John River. At Una Junction, Mileage 21.8 of the Fredericton Sub, the outbound train turned north on trackage rights at Mileage 0.2 of the CNR Fredericton Spur and joined their 70.5-mile Saint John - South Devon Oromocto Sub at Mileage 69.4. The Turn then crossed the bridge in the background. (On Monday, March 16, 1936, the ice blocked river destroyed the original crossing; this bridge opened on Wednesday, June 1, 1938. It survives as a walking path.) Reaching South Devon on the northern bank, the train turned north for a 37-mile run to Southampton on the Gibson Sub. At Southampton, Mileage 22, it turned south, travelling 9.4 miles to the mill at Nackawic.

Upon returning to Fredericton, the power was set up to do a nightly 133.2-mile turn to Saint John. This arrangement ended on Friday, October 25, 1985, thereafter power from mainline freights brought cars the 22.2 miles into town from Fredericton Junction on the Montreal - Saint John line. Prior to Friday, November 28, 1980, the nightly freight, the "Oriental', took its train to McAdam, forty miles west of the Junction.

The 1967 flooding behind the Mactaquac Dam caused the relocation of several communities. It spawned the province's first model community in Nackawic. The flooding also cut short the last 3.1 miles of the Southampton Sub that reached down to the Saint John River at Otis. St. Anne Nackawic Pulp and Paper opened their kraft pulping mill in 1970 and received a continuing supply of rail-hauled Bunker 'C' oil from the Irving refinery in Saint John. Rail shipments lasted until Monday, November 29, 1993. At the end of 1994, CP Rail discontinued its operations east of St. Jean, Quebec and abandoned its branchlines north of Fredericton. The present owner, AV Group NB Inc., produces up to 540 metric tons of bleach kraft pulp daily.