Created considerably before 1984, Rainer. Ice breaker cars were going
through Kamloops during the winter of 1975-1976. As I recall, they were
mounted on old 40-foot box cars. At that time, the explanation that I
recall for them was that they prevented icicles from damaging cars on the
autoracks. I've never researched this, but I expect that at least until the
section forces were drastically cut in the 1960s, the sectionmen kept an eye
on ice buildup in the tunnels. When the section forces were drastically
thinned out, then other measures had to be resorted to and the icebreaker
car was 'it.'
Joe Smuin
-----Original Message-----
From: b4cprail
Sent: Saturday, November 27, 2010 5:27 AM
To: cpsig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [cpsig] Re: Ice breaker box cars
John, the ice breaker cars weren't created 'til 1984/1988
well after the demise of CP's passenger sevice. They were
modified in 1993 after the tunnel enlargement programme.
The 2009 CTG page 8-2 lists 7 on the roster at that time
of which 410010 was assigned to Northern Ontaro (according
to the article in CP Tracks).
Rainer
--- In cpsig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "jshorvath10583" <jshorvath10583@...> wrote:
> "Bob Grace" <rrgrace@> wrote:
> I am not sure what they did about icicles before these cars and the
> passenger locos were developed.
Perhaps in the days before dome cars and open-top autoracks there simply was no need.
John S. Horvath
