Just some questions about CDAC

So I was going through a bunch of old pictures on NERail and I looked at a bunch of the Canadian American stuff. It seems like it was a pretty ambitious railroad. What kind of improvements did CDAC bring into the BAR and CP parts they took over? I also noticed they picked up a lot of engines, one comment said they had from 80-90 on property at one point, is that true? Why so many units? And of course the final question, what led to the demise of CDAC?

Thanks!

CDAC was the operating company created by Iron Roads to operate the ex-CP trackage. Iron Roads retained the Bangor and Aroostook as the operating company for the old B&A tracks. Yes, they had 80-90 units on the property (for both railroads), and the reason was they usually needed that many to get the job done, since mechanical failures were quite common. The CDAC's demise was the same as the B&A, reduced revenues and increased operating costs due to a deteriorating infrastructure.

You'll also note that a lot of time and money was spent on applying attractive paint schemes to all of those locomotives. Nice looking, yes, but that money should have been used elsewhere.

Whenever folks bemoan the small number of locomotives in the MMA paint scheme, I like to remind them of what happened during the Iron Road Railways era. MMA is doing the right thing by making locomotive paint jobs a low priority at this point in time.

It looks like these units were junk because no one seems to want them to this day! http://www.rrtrader.com/buyequipment_de ... lect=3&i=7

Part of the problem they ran into was that they got caught in some expensive lease deals. A high lease/sale asking price is probably why those units are still available.