hello,
I am into model trains, and I have been curious for a while what kind of locomotive that is in a sawmill that my Dad works at.
http://www.geocities.com/puffie40/Switcher.html
can you tell me what kind of engine this is?
It is possible that a model might be advalible in HO?
Thanks!
Chris
Hello there.
Congratulations on your very first post[:p][^]. Wish you many more.
I am not the best person to answer this question, but my guess is thats a GE 50 ton. Looks like a GE, anyway.
Have a nice day now.
It’s a DT-2. About a dozen of these were built by CLC for Canadian Pacific around 1950. CLC was the licensee for Fairbanks-Morse at the time but these locomotives are not FM designs.
CLC also was a licensee for Baldwin and I believe that this is a Whitcomb design locomotive. Whitcomb was a division of Baldwin.
Wcleome to the forum, Chris! Have fun and post away! It’s always great to see another Canadian on here.
The switcher clearly once belonged to CP because it stll has CP’s old maroon and grey colours, but is now lettered for it’s new owner. I wouldn’t mind finding out more about the history of this engine and why it appears to be sitting on top of a gravel pile. It looks like it hasn’t been used in years. If it’s just being left to sit there and rust, it ought to be donated to a railroad museum. My dad works at a mine that used to use a switcher like this, plus 2 smaller ones, although they were gone before I was born. I don’t know what ever happened to them.
Thanks for the welcome!! [:D] Great to be here to talk about trains!
The loco is at a sawmill in a small town called Canel Flats. The sawmill supposidly relied on railways to transport them. However, CP Rail started raising prices to haul them because they wanted to haul Commodites, such as grain, Gravel, ect. (I was told this and I am not sure if i’m right) The sawmill soon found it was cheaper to haul the logs and lumber by truck than by rail. How or why it got abandoned there I do not know. The gravel pile probably got there by snowplows during the winter.
Notice the yellow thing on one of the hoods? I bet that’s a part of the train!
The pic was taken in 1995, when me and dad went down there to overlook the installation of some sawmill equipment. I was 8 at the time (I’m 16 now, and that’s me on the train)[:I]
I took a look at a GE 45 tonner on the 'net, at it does bear some resemblence.
Thanks for the ID!
Chris
I’m young too (I’m 17 right now). There are quite a few other teenagers on here as well. Some of us here on the forums e-mail each other and chat on MSN. Feel free to e-mail me.
I’m from Saskatchewan, but I’ve been to B.C. 4 times before. I looked in a Canadian Road Atlas for Canal Flats and couldn’t find it, so it must be small. What part of B.C. is it in? It always upsets me to see pieces of railroad equipment just left to rust. The saw mill obviously has no use for it. There must be a railroad museum somewhere nearby that would take it. Hey, if your dad works there, maybe even you could get and put in your back yard (Ha Ha).
Wish I could [:D]
Hey, glad to hear that there’s people my age talking in this group.
I updated the page with another dt-2 this time in a small village called elko. It is in remarkibly better shape mainly because it’s not in the middle of the lumberyard like the one in Canal flats is.
As for finding canel flats, try mapquest.com.
Chris
there was an old whitcomd switcher in us up to the 1940’s at the old Tahawus mines in the adirondaks. it was a side rod engine just like this one. it came from canada sometime around 1942.not much but it might be a clue.
Here’s a great link with pictures of these engines, some of which are in the CP paint scheme the one at Canal Flats was:
www.northeast.railfan.net/diesel116.html
Also, at his link there’s a “live steam” type model of one, but with a $7000 price tag, I don’t think it would be the kind of thing within your budget:
The 2 switchers that you are talking about are owned by Tembec Lumber.
They are for sale.I had a look at them they are not running and in very poor shape.
You would have to haul them out of there by truck and not to may groups would
want to spend that type of money.They have not ran for about 15 years.
Canal Flats is about 1 hour north of Cranbrook BC.
Whoa… How’d you know that? I did’nt know they were for sale!
My dad thought Tembec was holding them for the Cranbrook Railway Museum.
Actually, my dad says when we moved here in 1989, the switchers where already in disrepair. His guess is that they stopped moving in the early 80’s
The sawmill in Canal flats used to be called Crestbrook Forest Industries (CFI for short.) Hence the name on the switcher. They have a main HQ in Cranbrook, where my dad works.
The sawmill in Elko used to be run by a lumber company in Crowsnest past before CFI (Now called Tembec) took it over. I forgot the name, but that’s why there’s a different logo on that one.
Puffie40
The engines in the pictures are CLC (Canadian Locomotive Co.) DTC-2 Yard Switchers. They were built for CPR in 1960. A full discription is contained in the book by Don McQueen and Bill Thompson called " Constructed in Kingston". If you want more details e-mail me at RonaldBarrett895@msn.com. I have never seen a model of them but you never know.
I found a small database on the DT-2 locomotives at CP Rail. Here it is.
(Link) http://www.geocities.com/sdf-5/cpbloco.htm
44 Ton D-T-C Diesel Hydraulic Switcher
Builder CLC CLC CLC CLC
Built Mar 1957 Jan 1958 May 1959 Apr 1960
Class HS-5a HS-5b HS-5c HS-5d
Numbers 10-11 12-16 17-18 19-23
When I looked at the one in elko, I noticed a painted over number “25”
The loco is powered by two D337 Cat engines.
Does anyone have an idea where the “Hydralic Power” comes in?
Chris
They might have a torque-converter drive instead of traction motors, similar to the various Krauss-Maffei imports on D&RGW and SP and the Alco C643H’s on SP.
Almost all diesel units in Europe are Diesel Hydrolics. Hydrolic power transmission instead of electric. Unusual for America.
Yeah… that makes sence [:I]
Hey guys! look what I found on the net! :
I have a black & white photo of that exact switcher that my father took many years ago.
It appears that it was #14. The switcher appears to be in pretty good shape in the photo - probably still operating. I don’t know what year the photo was taken - probably in the 70’s.
I don’t have a scanner (yet) but I do have a digital camera so I could post a “photo of the photo” if anybody is interested.
Please do. I have a couple of pics of CPR DTC #15. Supposedly, they weren’t very popular with the crews… it was akin to switching with an RDC.
Chris-> I’m a big FM/CLC fan and back in the mid-80’s, a friend and I looked into what it would take to kitbash a DTC. Heavily reworking a GE 60 tonner looked feasible, the hardest part was modeling the wheels. In reality, only one axle was driven, and the side rods transferred the energy to the other axle. Figuring out how to scratch build the counter weights on the wheels seemed to be tricky part for which we couldn’t come up with a solution. Possibly cutting out and shaping pieces of styrene…?? For the side rods, we contemplated making them actually work like they did on the real thing. Either way, I chickened out as I had my hands full super-detailing old AHM C-Liner shells into CPR prototypes.
Here’s a couple of b&w pics taken in Victoria, BC in 1958 by Gordon Hulford:
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/cp/cp-hs15bgh.jpg
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/cp/cp-hs15agh.jpg
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/cp/cp-hs15cgh.jpg
Good luck! If you decide to accept the challenge (insert “Mission Impossible” theme here [:D]) take lots of pictures along the way and submit it to Canadian Railway Modeller Magazine. It’s sure to be published!
Correction: Most SWITCHER diesels in Europe are diesel-hydraulics, but most ROAD diesels are diesel-electrics. These are locomotives. There are also many diesel-mechanical railcars, some mu, and also many diesel-electric railcars. Dave Klepper