Smoking Alcos

A BC Rail freight train leaves Squamish southbound with a pair of classic Alco locomotives in the lead. August 1989.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• Train
• Alco
• Diesel
• Locomotive
• BC
• Rail

[Nathanrailfan]

I really love the BC RAIL M630

[Shaysteamjamb]

@Nathanrailfan Yes, the alcos were fun to watch!

[Barnekkid]

What was that handoff at the end all about?

[Shaysteamjamb]

@Barnekkid The video was taken during the days of written train orders. The fellow on the ground, the station operator, has a hoop that holds the orders in an elastic loop. The conductor on the caboose aims his arm into the loop to capture his copy of the orders on the fly.

[Regendxz]

what's the black thing between those tracks

[Shaysteamjamb]

@Regendxz That's Depot, the station dog.

[ubc101]

Nice work.

Whatever happened to those small little rail cars? The gold thing at the end.

[IKAPPYI1]

I loled when CP steamer showed up

[Shaysteamjamb]

@CMI1986X64 The train had stopped at Squamish station. It would be inconvenient for the conductor in the caboose many cars back to walk to the station to obtain his orders. Once the train was moving and accelerating, the best way to get the orders to the conductor was on the fly rather than stop and restart the heavy train. If the train did not have to stop, the orders would have been hooped up to both the head and tail ends.

[EMD645E]

@DeserTBoB93535 Yea, you do have a point in a way. Alco did have some models that were not so hot. I think towards the end they were trying to hard to compete with GE and EMD in the horsepower race and lost their way. The C-636 had a bad problem with pistons that weren't up to par. They got it fixed, but it was too little to late the units were doomed by then.