CP Company Service Models

The short train of CP company service equipment is posed in front of the WRJ station.

 CP Company Service Equipment Visits WRJ
Commentary by Peter Mumby..........photos by George Dutka.

Every so often visiting equipment shows up on the WRD; case in point - this short train of CP OCS equipment.  George's camera is always at the ready, so let's take a look at what showed up last Monday afternoon.

CP Engineering Services van 420989 is an acquisition from the recent Woodstock model train show.  An unknown modeller did an excellent job of weathering this piece, nicely toning down the bright white finish on this Rapido Trains model.  When I got this car home I went looking for a couple of companion pieces and found two cars built by London-area modeller, Ron McClocklin.  I had purchased them from Ron at the time he was dismantling his layout and selling off his equipment.

Jordan spreader CP402386, built from a Walthers kit, is a fairly generic model.  It's number series should probably be changed - I found that a CP402886 exists, although the style of CP402863 would more closely approximate this model.  The next time I am in a decaling frame of mind I will consider this change.

Here we see the opposite side of the crew transporter car.

CP 420927 is a scale test car built from Sylvan Scale Models kit HO-1098.  Best known today for its line of vehicle kits, Sylvan's 2004 catalogue included quite an extensive line of Canadian prototype freight cars, including vans, slab side hoppers, barrel ore cars, tank hoppers, and box cars.  A line of freight car detail parts and structure kits appeared in the catalogue, along with the beginnings of his vehicle line.  I guess the market for his Canadian freight car kits was simply too limited, and the larger American market for his vehicle kits caused him to phase out the rest of his line.  Despair not, however, for the Sylvan freight car kits still show up at local train shows.  They do build into a nice model, although they are labour intensive.
The distinctive body style of scale test car 420927 deserves a little explanation.  The prototype car was originally built as CP 381933, a slurry car designed to transport material to the Falconbrige smelter in the Sudbury area.  These cars are somewhat reminiscent of the CNR/ONR barrel ore cars, some of which were converted into scale test cars by CN.

George must be a man of some considerable influence.  He was able to get the local switching crew to move the flanger around to take best advantage of the available light for this photo.

Here is a nice broadside of the Rapido van.  Someone really spent some time on that weathering job!

I like the looks of the flanger, although it is not a strictly accurate representation of a CP prototype.

CP 420927 is a scale test car built from a prototypically accurate Sylvan kit.