Canadian Class 6 - Canadian National 4-8-4 Northerns (Confederations)
The biggest fleet of 4-8-4 types in the Western Hemisphere (the Soviet Union had 251 P36 4-8-4 units - thanks for the assist, RME)…
U-2-a, U-2-b, U-2-c, U-2-d, U-2-e, U-2-f, U-2-g, U-2-h, U-4-a…
Oh really?
I guess the answer is "Nyet!’
I stand corrected, comrade.
It looks like the Soviet Union buried us.
Even adding in GTW units, Soviet Union still triumphs in number.
We’ll restate to “the Western Hemisphere”.
How about “the free world”? Either way it works.
However,…watching that video …you need 2 4-8-4’s to pull that rinky dink train? A 4-4-0 could handle that, anytime. Ya, ya, grade and all that, gimme a break.
My 2nd to last memory of steam in regular service was on a bright sunny very cold winter day. Having walked home from school for lunch, as was the norm back then, I was sitting in the kitchen and saw a Northern pulling cars out of the Hercules plant in Burlington out onto the main line. The Beach Sub Division ended right there and connected with the Montreal-Windsor main. Hercules was the last plant ( still there) on the Beach Sub, today it is truncated to only an industrial spur to the plant.
Anyway, I knew what the 6xxx series of locomotives were, and it put on quite a show. It kept slipping and stalling, slipping away several times, which is quite exciting to witness from a short distance. I chalked it up to the weather conditions.
The 6400 series streamlined barrelled through town all the time on non stop through trains. Very exciting to witness.
There were a number of excellent pictures on Smugmug taken by the late Del Rosamond. Steam in the last days of operation in Pembroke Ontario, up to the summer of 1960. In fact, he took a picture of the last CP steam train through Pembroke.
For some reason they have disappeared from smugmug. You can find some of them here:
http://www.railpictures.ca/author/canadiansteam?bwbps_page_7445=1
Great stuff, betamax! Thanks for sharing that link!
What a great collection!
I’ve got to pay closer attention to this thread, there’s some neat stuff going on here!
Sure glad the Russians stopped being Commies, they’ve got some good lookin’ steamers, although the man was right, “Two 4-8-4’s for such a dinky train?”
Maybe it was just a power move.
Comparison of Canadian National 4-8-4 fleet U-2-a through U-2-h to Soviet State Railways 4-8-4 fleet P36:
CN 4-8-4 U-2-a though U-2-h (from Steamlocomotive.com):
Driver diameter - 73 inches
Boiler pressure - 250 psi
Grate area - 84.4 square feet
Tractive effort - 56,786 lbs
Soviet State Railways 4-8-4 P36 (from Steamlocomotive.com):
Driver diameter - 72.8 inches
Boiler pressure - 213.2 psi
Grate area - 72.66 square feet
Tractive effort - 40,192 lbs
In the picture from Toronto in 1956, the grain elevators are still there. Not in use but there they are at the foot of Bathurst Street.
The large water tank you see in the Pembroke photos is still standing, albeit with a nice mural surrounding it on the sidewall.