Throwback Thursday - Leased Units on the Havelock Sub

HLCX 4407 leads a string of loaded hoppers up the grade out of the 3M plant on August 14, 1998.  This facility was located a short distance east of CP's Havelock yard.

By Peter Mumby.

Home road locomotives (in this case, exemplified by CP 8250) are definitely in the minority in this set of power.  HLCX 4407 has combined with HLCX 4290 and another HATX locomotive to haul covered hoppers loaded with roofing granules and open hoppers full of trap rock out of the 3M facility east of Havelock. 

Leased units certainly were not unusual on CP at this time.  Most of them were EMD products, drawn from the used locomotive pool in the US.  A bit unusual, then, was HLCX 4290, a GMD GP40-2(W) originally constructed as CN 9640.  This particular unit continued to be a denizen of Ontario as it was later transformed into Huron Central Railway 3010.

The CP Havelock Subdivision is still active today, although the 3M  plant is now closed and the trackage shown in this photo has been out of service for at least 15 years.  Ironically, roofing granules are still transported by train in this area, although the product is now trucked from the Madoc area to a transloading facility in the Havelock yard.