A Geologist went on the Railway

Not the best shot but you take what you can get in low light conditions... Canadian Pacific had a sizeable fleet of MLW C630, M630 and M636 locomotives.  These were railfan favourites (not so much for the crews) for many years.  Initially they ran across the CP system, but when CP standardized on the SD40 and SD40-2 during the 1970's these units migrated to eastern Canada.  Some would make it as far west as Winnipeg, and a few even went west of there on occasion.   Growing up in western Canada these units were a rarity by the time I became more aware of what was running on the railways.  I saw the occasional C424, S-2 or S-3, but the "Big Alcos" were not something I can recall seeing prior to moving to Winnipeg for university.  These quickly became a favourite, and I was quite happy to see them lurking around the city.   CP retired these units in the early 1990's but reactivated a few when traffic levels required more motive power.  The ...

A work trip took me to northern Manitoba in April - May 2000.  At this time the gold mining industry was going through a rough patch, with depressed prices and many companies cutting staff and shutting down mining operations.  The project I was running at the time had been shut down and I was at loose ends.   My boss "strongly suggested" that I get out of the office for an extended period as having someone not actively working on a project was likely to get unwelcome attention from the company in the form of a pink slip.  So I quickly came up with a trip to review gold projects in the cheapest way possible in Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario.  There was a mining conference in Thunder Bay and I knew people in Flin Flon and Thompson that I could couch surf with.  I arranged a few mine tours and meetings with several companies and prospectors to review their gold projects.   Overall I think I budgeted around $2000 for the trip including car ren...

I was going to eventually do a stand alone post about the Quebec Iron and Titanium Railway in eastern Quebec but haven't gotten around to it yet.  In a way I beat myself to the punch.   A few years ago Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine had a layout design contest for their TOMA (The One Module Approach) method and I put in an entry.  I didn't win the contest and figured that the entry had gone away into the ether.   I was reading the April 2022 issue (it's an online magazine so "issue" is in digital form) and pretty much spit out my coffee when I got to the "Coming next  month" section and saw my panoramic photo of a ship being loaded at the ore dock along with a teaser about the QIT.  MRH did a good job on the article, and it has a lot of prototype photos so I figure it can take the place of my planned QIT blog post.  You can find the article here:  https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/quebec-iron-titanium-railway-12353820?pid=1332635156  ...

In the mid 2000's my work took me to the Cote Nord (North Shore) of the St. Lawrence in Quebec.  This sojourn allowed me opportunities to see the various iron ore hauling railways in the region.  These include the Quebec Iron and Titanium (QIT), Wabush Railway, Quebec North Shore and Labrador (QNSL) and the Cartier.  I'll focus this post on the last operation and cover the other lines in future posts.   Cartier 47 ex CN 2312 M636 in Port Cartier.  Photo by Larry Russell, used with permission Ex Morrison Knudsen exx Alco demonstrator C636-3 shortly after it arrived on the Cartier. Photographer unknown, my collection GP9 #56 in 1975 somewhere on the Cartier.  Photographer unknown, my collection The Cartier started operations in 1958.  There is a good  Cartier history  and modeling the railway at this link:  https://chemindefercartier.wordpress.com/2016/08/20/histoire-du-cartier/ . The Cartier was well known for it's long lived fleet ...