While searching the web for photos of a BQ23-7, i came across this oddball locomotive. Out of curiosity, what is it called and who made it?
It’s just an RS3 that’s had a nose job.
CP Rail 8460 was a Montreal Locomotive Works RS-3. Not sure when the nose was chopped down…
See http://www.mountainrailway.com/Roster%20Archive/CP%208400/CP%208460.htm and http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2332 for more information on the engine.
Why on earth would they do such a nose job? Makes it look funky…
It appears to be a RS-3 that had its nose shortened, and the stuff that was housed in the nose put on the rear hood. It must have been done to improve foward vision.
Nothing was moved to the long hood. The stuff you see on the roof is just the exhaust stack and a winterization hatch on the radiator fan.
Most of these low-nose conversions of RS3s were done for units used as hump switchers. Originally, dynamic brakes would have been in the short hood on most of these, but those were removed from many of the RS3s. Some units just had the equipment removed and the sides of the hood plated over.
To paraphrase Dean and Hanna’s Canadian Pacific Diesel Locomotives, 1981 , Page 135:
3 CP RS3’s (8445, 8450, 8456) had the short hood cut down for hump service and extra controls added;
2 (8443, 8452) had their bottom clearances raised so they could ride over the hump retarders but did not receive any other changes and acted as B units for hump engines;
4, (8427, 8435, 8449, 8460 from the OP), received the cut down short hood but not the added hump controls. They were used as yard switchers and transfer units.
No CP RS3’s had dynamic brakes.
Hello:
A small correction, as delivered all of CP’s RS3s came with dynamic brakes. In later years, as the units were bumped to lesser duties, their dynamic brakes were deactivated or outright removed as an “avoidable maintenance expense” to quote Dean and Hanna.
The chop nose RS3s lasted the longest (very early 1980s), all others were retired earlier as CP purged its roster of 244 engined MLW/ALCOs.
The 8427 survives on the Alberni Pacific heritage railway in Port Alberni BC where it came from Crown Zellerbach’s former Ladysmith based logging railway. It was operational at one time, not sure of its current status.
Regards,
Mike
If I was CP I think I would have just chopped off the entire short hood. Would look better. Anyone notice the nice looking RS11 trailing? Now the questions:
What was hump service again? What is a hump yard? What are hump controls? What are hump retarders?
Me bad, you are right about the DB’s. And I saw the 8427 running in Port Alberni last year, not sure about this year.
That’s a RS18, a Canadian only model. Much better than the RS11, see it has a higher number, so it must be better [(-D]
The RS18’s also got the chop too and look very nice:
Starting with the infrastructure, a hump yard is a classification yard which employs gravity to move rolling cars from the incoming cut into the appropriate body tracks. To get that gravity assist, the incoming cars are usually pushed uphill to the crest of the hump, then uncoupled and allowed to roll down the other side.
Retarders are devices that clamp the wheels of passing cars, rather like the calipers on a disc brake, to reduce the cars’ speeds. Ideally, the cars are left with just enough speed to couple - gently - to cars already classified and standing on the body tracks.
A locomotive in hump service is one which is fitted to push cars over the hump so they can be classified. Basic requirements are high tractive effort and excellent low-speed controllability. In steam days, an otherwise flatland railway might have articulated hump service engines. Later, the diesel slug (traction motors, no prime mover) was invented to fit the peculiar ‘lots of tractive effort at walking speed’ requirements of hump service.
Hump controls come in two flavors. For locomotives, they allow precise speed control and flexibility at hump operating speeds (slow jog, or fast walk.) There are also the fixed-plant controls for the retarders and switches that get the free-rolling cars into the appropriate track at the appropriate speed. They used to occupy a tower at or close to the crest of the hump. These days they are operated by remote control from wherever the railroad management decrees - possibly several states away.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with flat-switched yards)
Nope, because that’s an RS18, not an RS11. (Although an RS18 does have the same engine as an RS11)