In looking at my slides, I have two showing icicle breaker cars in the 404550
series and these are using the icicle breaking racks that we are familiar with
in the current 410000 series. The earliest shot I have is 1979, the latest
1984. The 404550 series used the 'minibox' boxcars. All my photos of the 410000
series are on more modern 40' boxcars.
Mark Wittrup
Regina
--- In cpsig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "K V Railway" <kvrailway@...> wrote:
-----Original Message-----
From: Roger Traviss
Sent: Saturday, November 27, 2010 7:41 PM
To: cpsig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [cpsig] Ice breaker box cars
Loosely speaking these were box cars fitted with metal bars on the roof
roughly in the same profile as the dome profile on the Canadian's domes.
These box cars would be sent ahead and would knock down any icicles or
other
obstructions that would otherwise hit the domes themselves and possibly do
damage.
I thought we agreed that these cars were not introduced until after the
autoracks came into service?
Or were they in use in the 1950s and early 1960s?
Roger Traviss
Listers:
Roger has the correct impression, the box cars showed up a long after the
Canadian Budd equipment came into service. Just to be sure,
I put the question to a long retired CPR official who shall remain nameless
by his specific request. You'll just have to trust me on this one,
but this individual is well qualified to answer the question. Here's the
correspondence from earlier this evening:
From: Joe Smuin
To: (name deleted)
Sent: Saturday, November 27, 2010 7:11 PM
Subject: Icicles on tunnel roofs.
Hi ____
In days of yore, before the icicle-breaker cars run between Calgary and
Coquitlam, how were bad icicle buildups in the various main line tunnels
handled?
Joe
HIS RESPONSE:
From: (name deleted)
Sent: Saturday, November 27, 2010 7:31 PM
To: Joe Smuin
Subject: Re: Icicles on tunnel roofs.
Off the cuff, they were simply ignored because they really didn't hurt
anything. The along came the automobile racks. I well remember the first
trains in the first winter arrived with top deck autos with smashed
windshields, cars full of ice. That did it. OK? _____
------------------------------------------------
I haven't had time to research this, but I think the autoracks began showing
up in the early 1960s. I had been given to understand during my time in
Kamloops that the icicle-breaking cars had nothing to do with the Canadian
and
I feel that my friend confirms my impression. As other genuinely
knowledgeable commentators have already stated in this thread, the smaller
icicle breakers mounted on certain FP7-9 units
were expressly for the protection of the Budd dome cars. The autoracks
exceeded the height profile of the Budd equipment and hence more drastic
steps had to be taken immediately when the
CPR forcibly learned the difference between those heights.
I hope this will put an end to the notion that the box car equipped icicle
breakers had anything to do with the Budd dome cars in service on the
Canadian. They didn't!
Joe Smuin
