Caption: Train 204 pulls up to the station in Clarenville to change crews for the final time as it crosses Newfoundland from Port Aux Basques to St. John’s. On Thursday morning, August 26, 1982, the train is running some four hours late. Perhaps the delay led employees in Bishops Falls, the previous division point, to overlook setting off coach 760. The coach had travelled overnight next to van 6069 from Corner Brook, the next division point to the west. The car provided accommodation for passengers wanting to experience the Gaff Topsails, a vast wilderness area in central Newfoundland.
Train 204 is powered by NF210 units 940, 941 and 921. The CNR, in collaboration with their manufacturer, GMDL, in London, Ontario, specially designed these 1200hp units and their NF110 precursors for service in Newfoundland. With a 567 series V12 diesel, outside frames and C-C trucks, they proved a reliable and economical replacement for steam power on the 3’6” gauged system. The two leading units were from the final order delivered in January 1960, while the 921 was from the first order delivered in August 1956. A museum has preserved class GR-12x 940 at Whitbourne, 54.5 miles west of St. John’s. The two other units found homes on the Ferrocarril de Antofagasta a Bolivia in Chile as their 1425 and 1419. Exporail, in St-Constant, Quebec has preserved coach 6069 (CC&F 1949), and van 6069 (NSC/CN 1-1967) found a home in Lewisporte, Newfoundland and Labrador.
The station at Clarenville, 131 miles west of St. John’s on the 548-mile line to Port aux Basques opened in 1898. Operator Lindo Palmer formally closed the station for Terra Transport, CN’s successor in Newfoundland, on Tuesday, October 18, 1988. It has since reopened as part of a museum that includes NF110, 900, 176, the last diner built in Canada by National Steel Car in 1958 and caboose 6061.
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A beautiful capture of a typically grey foggy day that was quite common on Newfoundland’s east coast Bill! Furthermore, you also captured 204 before G8’s 800 and 802 would be placed behind the NF210’s for the deadheaded journey to St. John’s for service. True Newfoundland railroading! – Ken