Comments on: There was a time in southern Ontario when you needed to call out snow plows to keep rail lines open. CP’s Goderich sub was notoriously bad for “lake effect” snow and, starting in the mid-1970s, CP began to use FP7s on the line during the worst of the winter. FP7 4061, normally assigned to Western Lines provides the muscle behind plow 401006 in February 1976. CN picked up the practice a couple of years later, assigning F-units to plow duty out of Stratford.

By: RonaldB

RonaldB — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 03:19:12 +0000

I’ll dig up my old time books, with an exact date, I might have some info on this plow & the story behind it.

By: Doug Page

Doug Page — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 00:54:15 +0000

correction–date was 8 February 1976.

By: Doug Page

Doug Page — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 00:50:21 +0000

Tracked down the date of this shot–6 January 1973.

By: terry.oshell

terry.oshell — Thu, 01 Feb 2024 12:51:57 +0000

A great plow shot. The snow looks well packed on the nose. The plow headlight sure looks nice.

By: RonaldB

RonaldB — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 19:53:43 +0000

great photo from a long gone time. Given the position of the plow, I wonder if this is a mainline plow headed west for London rather than coming off the Goderich? In heavy snow years, the same plow that did the Woodstock branches sometimes also plowed the main trtack to Guelph Jct, and then used the double track plow to do to Streetsville & return. They would then leave the double track plow at Guelph Jct & do the main back to London or as far as Woodstock if the branches had not been done yet or needed plowing again. Also, the employee looks like it might be Jack Anderson who worked the mainline & Woodstock plows.