SPIKE  is 27 feet tall and constructed from various pieces of freight car and locomotive parts.
The body is a boiler, the head and ears are gears and the arms and hands are couplers. 
He is holding a locomotive engine crankshaft in his right hand. The monument stands within the parking lot at the entrance to the Shops (now Alstom), in the 7200 block of Ogden Road in Calgary.

The roof rack has some kind of rod on the driver's side 
and a long-handled shovel on the passenger's side,
shown in the other photo.

This one was in or around Cochrane, Ontario in April 1976 and belonged to CN.

For some reason, it doesn't bear a number. 
Notice the long-handled shovel fastened to the roof rack.

If someone has other details, we'd like to add them here.

It is a 1934 Buick adapted to run on rails. The 
conversion was done in 1936 at the Canadian 
Pacific Railway shop in Winnipeg for use by the
CPR superintendent, Saskatchewan division, 
who worked out of Moose Jaw.

Some of the display includes MLW diesel locomotive 
CPR 6553 , CPR steam locomotive 2634 shown in these pages and other rail artifacts such as railway cars. Other portions of the museum feature old-time classic cars and aircraft, particularly the Canadian Forces Snowbirds 
who are base in Moose Jaw.

Take a 360 degree tour of some of the displays at:  http://wdm.ca/mj.html

It has been fitted with steel wheels, which precludes travelling on the highway. Another special feature of the
car is the jack and turntable fitted to the underside. To change direction, the driver lowered the jack against the roadbed and raised the car slightly off the rail. By then pushing on one corner of the car, it could be turned 
around easily.

Next to the 507 is ACR Steam Generator 76, rebuilt
from a boxcar 204 in 1951 or 1952, to provide heating 
for ACR coaches on mainline trains. Behind the vehicle
is ACR 141, one of the diesels purchased ACR from
General Motors in 1951 strictly for yard switching.
It was retired in 1992. During service the ACR SW8s 
had their stack shortened and were fitted with a spark arrestor. There is a photo of their only other SW8, 
ACR 140 at
http://yourrailwaypictures.com/OldDiesels/indexOther.html

It was probably built in the 1970s by The D. Wickham Company of Ware, England. This is their Type 42. 
View their brochure for this model at https://www.flickr.com/photos/112499646@N07/
11557350336/. V-10 is 1 of only 5 ever imported to 
Canada. Another one is M200 used by CP Rail;
shown down the page at http://www.wpgrailwaymuseum.com/page2.html
and preserved in Winnipeg.
Both featured a streamlined body with full insulation 
and could sit as many as 9, with double-ended controls 
and capable of a fair speed.

Sometime in the mid-1980s, the V-10 got repainted in 
the new BCol livery of red white and blue and it is now preserved at the Prince George Railway and Forestry Museum. See a photo of the V-10 in blue at http://www.panoramio.com/photo/38387499

The  speeders are now very much in great demand by 
railway collectors and museums

Take the ultimate speeder trip by visiting The
Railrodder, starting Buster Keaton, as he makes a
trip on CN speeder 135-58 across Canada.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiqqxyZeDXo

Should you wish to purchase the original:  http://www.nfb.ca/film/railrodder
34,000 people liked that  one.

More about the making of the film at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Railrodder 
And more about speeders at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speeder

The more modern version of the track inspection car for track maintenance is now the small and medium size utility truck fitted with a "high railer" kit. It's usually a pickup 
truck which can transport both material and crews along
the rail. 

As they neared the site to be inspected, the MofW crew proceeded to a railway crossing. There, the aligned the
truck aligned it parallel to the rails.  Steel wheels front and back were then lowered into the rails, either manually or electrically from the cab. The truck then departed down the rails and tires provided the traction on top of the rail and forward movement, while the steel wheels guided the vehicle along. The setup operation usually took less than 2 minutes.

The building is in fact the old CPR station, illustrated on
the Station page. Notice the wide width of the Main Street 
in those early Western Canada villages and towns. 
All commerce was usually located there. All parking was at an angle such as here. (It goes back to the horse and buggy days and hitching posts)

Note the extra-wide tires on the truck for better
traction of rubber on steel. 
The location is ideal for visiting railfans and within
walking distance of the Calgary Tower in the 
background. The date is June 17th, 2014.

This winter there was no need to take any chances! 
The plow sat here all winter because of lack of snow

Windsor & Hantsport Railway Company (WHRC) plow 55360 (ex CN) pushed by Central Manitoba Railway GP9RMs 4014 & 4011 (leased to the WHRC) and three empty grain cars have just arrived at Windsor Junction 
on January 4 2010.
Antique equipment still at work! Last year wet snow was apparently packed down by trespassing snowmobilers and then froze. First the locomotives derailed and later the plow derailed. Finally the railroad had to rent a front end loader to 
dig out the tracks. This year they are taking no chances!
With the economic downturn the gypsum mine has stopped work and so the freight from Windsor Junction to Windsor Nova Scotia (approximately weekly) is the only train on the railway. At Windsor the grain is unloaded with augers into trucks which transport it to the feed mills in the Annapolis Valley - the line from Hantsport to 
New Minas is out of service.

Roberval Saguenay Raliway plow 3012 in Alma QC in
the early 80s,  behind an RSR flanger.
The flanger is still in the old paint of orange and black.
Roberval Saguenay started operation is an arm of Alcan in 1925, taking over a pulp carrying railway.  RS is an industrial shortline, operating from Port Alfred QC (a
deep sea port) to Jonquière (formerly Arvida - named
for Arthur Vining Davis, first president of ALCOA), carrying bauxite, which is then refined into alumina and aluminum ingots. Another plant is in Alma QC. 
The Roberval and Saguenay Railway Company is
owned by Rio Tinto Alcan ( previously
Alcan Aluminium) 

Near there is the only aluminum (road) bridge in Canada.
http://en.wikipedia.org

View the RS information  at http://cnplus.cn.ca/it/shortlines/sl_static.nsf/
and
http://www.trainweb.org/oldtimetrains/RS/history.htm

In the 1980s, prime motive power was Alco/MLW only.
RS operated the first two M420TRs.
Numbers 26 ad 27. - see photos elsewhere on this page.

The artifact was constructed in December 1911 at the
Canadian Pacific Angus shops in Montreal, as CP 300884, 
before becoming 4000884 and probably worked through 
the Rockies before being retired and donated to the Park.

Ron Powman, worked for CP for 37 yrs..including a few years on the Conductor's spareboard out of London Ontario.  We often ran snowplows especially on local branchlines and I worked many. He had the following comments to make about this plow.

The CP plow you show No. 400884 is a western design used to plow avalanches at lower speeds. Those plows have shorter "brow" and bars over windows to prevent trees in the snow from breaking windows.

Both railway artifacts are property of the Kamloops 
Heritage Railway Society

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamloops_Heritage_Railway

http://tourismkamloops.com/kamloops-heritage-railway
-steam-train-in-kamloops-british-columbia

The plows were painted CN orange. The 698 is
preserved at The New Brunswick Railway Museum
in Hillsborough, NB. 

View a photo of the preserved plow at: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.
aspx?id=3557367
 

This information was provided by Ron Bowman
Ron worked for CP for 37 yrs..including a few years on
the Conductor's spareboard out of London Ontario. 
We often ran snowplows especially on local branchlines and I worked many.

The railway originally used the blower in front of a steam engine, but I have seen the same unit in front of the diesel engines after they were introduced.
 

Flangers are still used. A more modern version 
(CN 56215) rebuilt from a boxcar can be viewed at http://www.flyerguide.net/viewphoto.php?id=35860

It has regular cupola and plywood sides and is
painted in the 1950s maroon scheme with the large 
bear logo. This view is taken at the ACRs Steelton
(Sault Se. Marie ON) facility c. 1975

It is used to clear ice and snow between the rails 
and the plow must be raised when the flanger comes
to a switch or grade crossing. A trackside sign alerts 
the operator when this becomes necessary. 

Taken at an unknown location, either at the NAR
Dunvegan yard (today non-existent)
or  north of Edmonton, most probably in the mid-60s.

Probably built around 1910 it is still in remarkable
condition some 50 years later but most likely scrapped 
today along with other NAR rolling stock

The Industrial Brownhoist 250-ton (Ser# 12325 and built in 1956) and is now on display as part of a work train at the Alberta Rail Museum in north Edmonton, Alberta
http://www.albertarailwaymuseum.com/

A superb wide angle view of the pulley arrangement is at http://gigapan.org/gigapans/78504/

View the whole series of these.CP cranes at http://www.trainweb.org/oldtimetrains/photos/cpr
_rolling/three.htm

See it at rest with a boom car: http://www.trainweb.org/oldtimetrains/
photos/cpr_rolling/three.htm

The maker and lifting capacity couldn't be determined 
but it looks to have been taken with a large format
camera around 1910-1920 for record purposes and 
could be a 100-ton Industrial Brownhoist crane. 
By 1923, Industrial Works had produced and sold
3,776 cranes and were the leading manufacturer in
North America.

Very little information about this piece of Maintenance 
of Way can be found anywhere but some members of
the Ontario Northland Railways Historical & Technical
Society http://www.onrhts.org/ were kind enough to
confirm that the picture was taken pre 1980 on the 
auxiliary track between the present wheel shop and the 
old yard office and car offices in the North Bay yard. 
The crane is ready for quick response, judging from the steam around the frame. ONR502 is a  Industrial 
Brownhoist, capacity 100 tons capacity and style wound indicate that it was probably built by Brownhoist, in the 1940s.
View a photo of it in derelict condition at: http://www.onrhts.org/More-Galleries/MOW-Equipment/
MOW-Cranes/
 

http://www.gopettibone.com/speed-swing/

Baie-Comeau is a deep water port on the St. Lawrence
River located approximately 420 kilometres (260 mi)
north-east of Quebec City in the Côte-Nord 
(North Shore) region of the province of Quebec.
It is named for a local North Shore geologist and naturalist.

Though colonized before, the town took root in 1936, when Colonel Robert R. McCormick (1880-1955), owner and publisher of the Chicago Tribune, built the Quebec 
North Shore Paper mill, taking  advantage of surrounding
forest for the pulp, unlimited  supply from nearby waterfalls
for hydroelectric power and paper processing as well 
as ice-free deep water port to ship finished newsprint 
rolls to Chicago by boat through the St. Lawrence River.

The Quebec North Shore Paper thrived and greatly
expanded in the 1950s. It lost its identity along with 
other Canadian pulp paper pioneers in the 1970s, as 
merger upon merger took place within the industry.
Currently, it is known as AbitibiBowater. It now has
11,200 employees. Newsprint still accounts for about 
40 percent of its business. The rest of the business 
includes products like packaging paper and lumber.

It's fair to assume that the crane was used to unload
giant newsprint rolls brought to the dock from the plant 
and place them into ships' holds for transportation to the 
US. After this photo was taken, it may or may not have remained in service and does not appear on any paper
roster or on-line research. The dock at Baie-Comeau is
now serviced by COGEMA, which is a subsidiary of CN. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compagnie_de_gestion_
de_Matane

Any update would be most welcome.

This view shows containers being handled at the old intermodal facility in East Calgary just out of the 
downtown core, in September 1985. 
The CP Intermodal Yard has now moved in the deep 
south, around 114 Avenue SE, far away from
any habitation. 

Sharp eyes will notice the dark plate (actually multi-
coloured) on the side of the trailer. It is part of the now
defunct Automatic Car Identification system (ACI). 
The plate was scanned by an optical reader while trains proceeded at speed in front of the unit mounted trackside
on a post. It gave shippers a readout of where the cargo actually was within the system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_equipment
_identification and it was used heavily on boxcars, 
hoppers and 
other pieces of heavy haul.

Read all about ACI coding specs including size of plate 
and at: http://www.nakina.net/other/aci/aci.html

View the DC-1 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9Q9KS4J6Gg,
as it approaches a crossing blowing the whistle 
several times.
Much better still, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=lppYY6CTtqQ&feature=endscreen&NR=1
is a video of the DC-3 actively cleaning a ditch.
It shows the capabilities of this type of mighty machine.
Another view of a railway ditch cleaner is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acFYtydxH7Y&feature

A ballast tamper lifts the railway tie (sleeper) and 
vibrates it. This causes the ballast around the tie to
loosen up and fall underneath (tamping). The tie is then replaced on top of the newly-vibrated ballast and the
machine goes on to the next tie.

View a small ballast tamper in action at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuDOFxYweIk
This one is fitted at the end of an excavator while the
crew spreads new ballast  on new;y-laid track.

A bigger tamper is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaQHc6fM-SA

The claws grab the tie, which is then lifted slightly and vibrated, causing the stone underneath to level off and 
fall into the cavity under the tie..

When the claws are released and brought up slightly, 
the machine moves along to the next tie. It's a slow 
and noisy process, carried out about walking speed. 

A tamper is extremely useful where concrete ties are installed, as they are too heavy to be lifted by hand
using a crowbar, as done for years with wood ties.

Notice the different window treatment in each spreader
and plow.
Also, yellow reflective patches have been recently 
applied to bring the units to current railway standards.
All four units are currently on the active roster.

The 139 was taken out of service by SRS and is no longer shown on their roster.

Of particular note to this view is that the car is parked exactly where the CPR Great hall, now stands (as is the RG-9 grinder elsewhere)
The blue pillars were the loading dock for the Calgary 
central post office and the building at the back is the Fairmount Palliser Hotel
More about doodlebugs at: http://www.northeast.railfan.net/doodlebugs.html
View a great night shot of SRS detection car 119 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GKEUWGpvUA 
and notice how the paint scheme was changed yet again, 
to reflect the "ultrasonic" function of the car;  with 
electronic pulses now on the side..

Other than the Sperry units, some pictures of 
surviving EMC railrars can be viewed at http://www.dermpav.net.au/html/body_surviving_emc
_railcars.html  Most were built in the 1020s and still 
feature their original gasoline engine. While idling, 
they burbled and reeked of fuel. See one in operation at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGOIRLqtd1g 

The unit was formerly Lehigh Valley Railroad (LV)
29 and was acquired by SRS in September 1939. 
It is currently named P.E. Kennedy and its purpose 
like others in the fleet, is for electromagnetic 
detection of rail flaws.

The doodlebug was built by J.G. Brill in 1928 and entered service for the SRS in 1948 after a stint on the New York Central.
See a 2-minute night action video of SRS 136 going in the "hole" at Alyth,  with all lights flashing at: http://www.youtube.com/watch
The location in which the SRS 136 will eventually park is
that of the picture.
(A "doodlebug" is a self propelled coach, the ancestor to modern RDSs - The older ones were gasoline units with gasoline generators and electric transmissions.
The inside was dirty and smelly and they made a racket
when running. All SRS units were eventually converted to diesel electric, in common use today)

As a rule, SRS units, when inspecting track, cruise fairly 
slow but they still clip along at speed. 
A very good overhead shot of an SRS unit on the track 
(SRS 119) is at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature

SRS doodlebugs have an unmistakable one-tone (tooter)
horn which can be heard at: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
and  http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature
The horn is prominently located on the roof, over one of
the windows. Also look at the bell and the air intake.

SRS 402 suffered fire damage in 1985 in the Windsor
Tunnel while returning to the USA from Canada and 
was retired.
It's visiting here in downtown Calgary, in March 1976.

The unit has not yet been modified to the newer 
standards, as seen in SRS 135 on this page

View the unit in a bit later livery at: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture
.aspx?id=3411678

The RMS-5 was introduced in 1997 and consists of one locomotive and 9 cars; arranged in the following order:
2 crew cars, 3 grinding cars, 2 water and fuel storage
cars and 2 generator cars. The 3 grinding cars are
fitted with 96 grinding stones, 48 on each side.

 Notice a couple of features on the locomotive:
The road number (RMSX 0591) and the fire hose
apparatus. Rail grinding generates a lot of sparks and therefore brush fires. The RMS-5 is designed to
grind about 80 miles of track per day.

RMS-1 eventually became integrated into Pandrol
Jackson (another picture on this page) and part of Harsco Rail Technologies, which contracts out to major railways.
The diesel engine is photographed in Calgary's Alyth Yard, sometime in the late 1990s.
Another picture on this page, shows the RMS-1 train 
train in action.

The view was taken in March 1990 from the
Gulf Canada Square Parkade, also described in one
of pages; where the price of parking the chariot can 
lead to good overhead views of the CP mainline in and
out of Calgary. Rail grinder trains never come apart and crews can be on the road for several months at a time.
The crew quarters can be seen in the other photo at the 
end of the train, this car rebuilt from an old GO Transit double decker. Some call  a rail grinder "The train from Hell" but  it is fascinating to watch. Many older units
such as the RG-9 have now been replaced by newer units 
and this setup, now becoming part of the new rail
grinding train.

The stones are just a very large version of those found on shop grinders, with the proper grit to match and they are periodically replaced and the old ones discarded trackside,
as they wear out. 
Grinding generates lots of sparks. The attached apparatus
to the bogies is designed to contain wayward sparks and prevent brush fires along the right-of-way while grinding. 

CP 8217, is GP9 built in September 1954 as CP 8502 (Ser# A700 with high hood) and remanufactured in 1988 to low
hood; Accommodation Car CP 68 which provides lodging
for testing personnel; CP 424993 for tools and generator, labeled GAUGE RESTRAINT MEASUREMENT 
VEHICLE, which shoots a laser beam on the track below
(seen in the second photo by the underside boxes). 
Bringing up the rear is Track Evaluation Car CP 63,
equipped with a horn and ditch lights used when the
train must test, back end first, such as into spur tracks.

There is excellent coverage of the purpose and 
composition of both Canadian Pacific Railway TEC 
trains and methods and a few pictures of the interior at: http://www.okthepk.ca/dataCprSiding/articles/200710/
tec00.htm

In this video, GP9u CPR 8217, specifically assigned to 
this evaluation train, has just left Calgary's Alyth Yard 
westbound and proceeds across 8 St SE x 9 Ave (by Fort Calgary), composed of ACCOMODATION Car 68,
GAUGE RESTRAINT MEASUREMENT VEHICLE 424993 and TRACK EVALUATION Car 63.

In January 1990, VIA abandoned service through 
Calgary and the washrack was dismantled. Also, 6 ft.
fences were added to each side of the track to prevent trespassing.This photo was taken with a Canon F1 
camera and 200mm telephoto lens on colour film from
several feet outside of the track network. (9 Ave SW is 
to the left of the picture).

F40PH-2 6410 was built by General Motors Diesel 
Division in London Ontario (Ser# A4607) and rebuilt 
to an F40PH-3 in July 2010 with a third headlight, 
different horns n top of the cab,  air conditioning and 
repainted in the VIA Rail “Renaissance” scheme. 
View it in its new colours at: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture

Basically it saves taking the Locomotive out on the 
road to see if it can " load " or pull properly.

The above caption provided by Jore Zika

For all you steam fans, this page is a must

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