Throwback Thursday - All but Gone

SWITCHER LOCOMOTIVES AND PIGGY BACK TRAILERS

by Keith MacCauley 

Lower HP, end cab locomotives were at one-time commonplace. Purpose built for switching duties, the relatively diminutive units were for the most part confined to yards, rarely able to access the mainline. Some, however, did escape; witness CN 7005 plying Canadian National’s Oakville subdivision high iron through Bayview Junction. The reason? To facilitate trailer off-loading at nearby Stuart Street Yard, the coupled flatcars needed to be ‘Y’d’ (reversed). While many SW type locomotives are still around, virtually all toil away on short lines or industrial sites. Fortunately, a number have been preserved. Overall, most are well past the half century mark in age and many are existing on borrowed time. While yard switching is of course still required, virtually all Class One railroads have cascaded former road units into such back and forth duties.

Piggy back (trailer on flat car or TOFC) traffic? While still a practice in the US, aside from special needs, virtually absent from the Canadian railway landscape. Even Canadian Pacific’s dedicated, purpose built ‘EXPRESSWAY’ could not sustain profitability; the economics of so called ‘double stack’ container traffic has prevailed.

What about SW9 CN 7005? Built by GMD London in 1952 the end cab unit would be renumbered CN 7705 in 1985, and off the roster by 1990.