As I lived on the bluffs of the Bow River Valley high above the mainline of the CP railroad where it heads up the valley towards the Rockies, naturally I keep binoculars ready near the west facing windows. I enjoy the routine freight traffic, the meat and potatoes of CP, but the oddities that I spot on the rails are the true gravy.
Some summers I spot MOW crews with long black grimy units grinding and polishing the rails with sparks flying creating a noise that even a mile away is frightening. These rail grinders are followed by rail-riding pickup trucks with water tanks hosing –down the small fires lit by the sparks in the dry vegetation. This could make an interesting scene to model.
Once per season the CP hauls out a steam locomotive for a passenger consist to Banff. If it is a crisp cool autumn morning with the aspens turning yellow its distinctive sound penetrates your skin and the steam fills the valley lingering long after the train has past, like a memory. This is the season I am thinking of scenicing on my small fictitious CP subdivision modeled in a narrow Front Range valley of the Rockies.
April, some literary-types say, is the cruelest month—up here winter is not finished yet. This time of year we are into the fight between winter and spring. My question involves an oddity that I have spotted in and amongst the routine freights. It is a box car with a frame constructed of yellow I beams shaped like a large roll bar built on top the box. Sometimes there are two traveling together. What are they?
My reasoning suggests that it is some contraption that is intended to knock the icicles off the tunnels, portals and bridge overpasses. Ordinarily I do not see these cars in the dead of winter but usually in early spring and I suppose this is because they are kept up in the mountains or because the spring thaw is icicle season.
Are these boxcars with roll bars for tunnel clearance? Has anyone modeled icicles on their model RR? If
