Throwback Thursday - SGU

 

Bob Hannah took this circa 1986 photo at Steelton Yard in Sault Ste Marie.

By Peter Mumby

Photo by Bob Hannah.

In 1952 Algoma Central became the first railway in Canada to fully dieselize its operations.  No orders had been placed for boiler-equipped units, so provision had to be made to heat the company's passenger trains.  Several coaches used on short locals had been outfitted with individual furnaces, but this was not a practical approach to heating longer trains.  The decision was made to equip each such train with a self-contained steam generator unit (SGU).  Some of these units were created in-house from retired boxcars or troop sleepers.  Others were purchased on the used market.  Units 80 and 81 (80 shown here) were acquired in 1969 from Northern Pacific.  NP had built the SGUs earlier from former steam locomotive auxiliary tenders.  These two pieces of equipment stayed on the ACR roster until the mid-1990s when they were retired and scrapped.