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Caption: You can just smell the new paint! Brand new CP Rail SD40-2 units 5597 and 5598 sit in fresh spotless red, white and black "Action Red" livery at CP's Quebec Street Shops, newly outshopped from the nearby GMD London plant. Both feature the then-current large multimark and 5" full front cab and end striping. Note CP/Canadian-specific details including vertical steps and profiled handrails, nose-mounted headlight on early 81' short hood, numberboard-mounted brass bell, single class lights, nose brakewheel, CP-style rock pilot plow, Nathan Airchime K3LR2 horn, end pilot lift rings (no ditch lights for a few more years), and single rear headlight with no end numberboards. Red markings and chain keepers on the end MU hoses are a nice touch. Also of local interest is the roundhouse turntable near the Quebec Street overpass.
Both units were part of CP's second order for EMD/GMD's new SD40-2 model: GMD order C-349 for CP units 5589-5628, DRF-30h class, built May-July 1972. Both were outshopped at the same time, and (as per the Dean & Hanna CP book) officially added to the CP roster on May 19th 1972. 5598 was retired after an accident on the Ignace Sub in March 1979, while 5597 was retired in 2004 and sold to NRE (then resold to the Chicago, Fort Wayne & Eastern RR).
Gord Taylor photo, Dan Dell'Unto collection slide.
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Gord’s great photo reminds me of a story from the past. Very early in my railway career, I was on the head end of a westbound train out of London Ont headed to Windsor. We had 2 new SD-40-2s from GMD on their shakedown trip. It was in cooler weather & when we reached the first crossing where the horn needed be sounded, the engineer pulled the handle & nothing much seemed to happen. All the cab windows were closed & he tried again, still only a faint sound of the horn. We had a fireman on the unit that trip & he opened the cab window on his side & said “try it again”. Then we heard the horn. The windows had perfect seals and because the horn was at the back of the unit, we couldn’t hear it in the cab. This was the first time any of us had been on a unit that didn’t have the horn right over our heads on the top of the cab.
Hopefully not meaning to discredit, do these 2 units look like they were just taken out of a 1980′s Tyco/Bachmann box. If anything I will give an atta boy to Tyco for replicating this image so well, for the cost, in their model trains. This shade of red looks fantastic, even better fresh off the assembly line.