CN mystery car

[up1950s]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8716587@N08/3756863974/

[ljudice]

Used for moving prime movers:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/rsPicture.aspx?id=302878

[Dave Schneider]

The ride height is terrible and its missing the sight glass....
Thanks for sharing Richie. Cool car.

Best wishes, Dave

[Philip H]

So do w ethink they welded it up costom, or did the cut down an old Geep?  EIther way, since it's ICG, I may well have to throw it in the kitbashing que.

[ljudice]

Why would they  use the trucks?  Are they not a bigger maintenance issue than plain old freight car trucks??

Just don't understand this unless it's a cut down loco.

[up1950s]

Why would they  use the trucks?  Are they not a bigger maintenance issue than plain old freight car trucks??

Just don't understand this unless it's a cut down loco.

I think it is a OEM stripped frame , with the OEM motor mounts . The wheels probably have had the traction motors pulled . Being that the thing is so light now and free wheeling those trucks and wheels ought to outlast the frame . Actually I am surprized we don't see more of these as the simplicity make so much sense .

[Philip H]

The jack pads and pilots suggest cut down loco - possible wrecked, but the end grabs/ladders suggest home made shop frame.  Otherwise, why not use the steps?

[up1950s]

The jack pads and pilots suggest cut down loco - possible wrecked, but the end grabs/ladders suggest home made shop frame.  Otherwise, why not use the steps?

 Could be it is 2 damaged frames spliced together . Could this be the sub frame , and the steps were part of the outer frame . The surviving steps , if there were any ,  are needed for replacements on repairable locos more than for this thing .

[Hyperion]

The jack pads and pilots suggest cut down loco - possible wrecked, but the end grabs/ladders suggest home made shop frame.  Otherwise, why not use the steps?

I think you answered your own question on why not use the steps:  Like you said -- "possible wrecked".

In any accident, even minor ones, the steps are virtually inevitably destroyed.  They hang down there, they're all spindly, and it doesn't take much once the wheels leave the rails for them to get smushed good.  As I type this I'm literally about 50ft from several warehouse racks jam-packed full of thousands of locomotive steps of all shapes and sizes for that very reason.

It's probably also why the fuel tank is gone too.  Otherwise I'd imagine they'd have left it  And maybe even filled with concrete just to improve the handling characteristics.

It's a car that really doesn't have to exist -- there are plenty of other suitable, I would say even better, means of moving engines.  It almost certainly came about as a fortuitous use of a fairly well trashed locomotive after a wreck.  Chances are, CN rebuilds their engines in the same place they rebuild their wrecked locomotives.  So if one came in they decided to 'total', they find a nice way to repurpose it into something they wanted but probably couldn't get authority to use/convert/purchase, or that someone got to claim as 'savings' on their employee review because they averted the purchase of a flat.  And I say that as one dealing with the distribution of company material within the BNSF and having to do exactly that sort of thing many times.

When I was faced with the inability to secure funds for new cars to distribute the wheels we made (most of my fleet was literally from WW2), I simply found a bunch of old Bulkhead flats that were coming up on their AAR dates and Marketing was unsure of the future demand being sufficient to recertify them for some more interchange years, so I took them off their hands, cut off the bulkheads, and used the monies from selling the sale from scrapping the bulkheads to pay for the conversions I neede to haul freight car wheels.  Called in a few favors and even got them painted good as new.

[Philip H]

Mark,
thanks for that perspective.  I think this is more then meets the eyes as the railroad pic archives photo shows this with a IC number - which suggests it might have been around premerger.  In any event, I am fascinated - now how to measure it for construction.

[up1950s]

Does anybody know what this was originally  ? GP-something or another ? Or what GP it  wasn't to play the elimination game . Could even be the frame is GE , or Canidian ?

The jacking pads and thin sill look like a  GP-40 or GP-40-2

[Philip H]

if the frame wasn't cut then the pad placement and truck spacing suggests GP 40 - if I'm scaling right off the photos.

[ljudice]

Supposedly...   A GE frame with EMD trucks...  Of course IC/ICG didn't have GE's -  so who really knows...


http://longwww.railroadforums.com/forum/showthread.php?p=167900

[Philip H]

Not true - they had a few u boats in the 70's

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/locoList.aspx?id=IC&mid=215

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/locoList.aspx?id=IC&mid=296

[up1950s]

If you look up the ICG freight numbering it shows 5 prime mover cars , the exact number of u-boats ICG had .