Royal Hudson

I was working (umm... ok, maybe slacking off...) in the shop today when this bunch of passenger cars rolled by.. kinda unusual for our yard...

http://members.shaw.ca/CN_sparky/Royal% ... 0_5642.JPG

...Then the Royal Hudson (CP 2860) came up behind them, pushing them around our shop loop at Thornton Yard... quite a surprise, I knew it was in town at some event but I wasn't expecting to see it in our yard too!

http://members.shaw.ca/CN_sparky/Royal% ... 0_5646.JPG

So shiny and clean... unlike all the other units around our yard...


Anyone else in Metro Van catch her in person?

NICE photos!

The lower one shows a diesel (EMD F-something, I suppose) coupled behind the tender: I take it that this is a "booster" used with the Royal Hudson in operation. At one stage or another there have been discussions about the possibility of running diesels in "multiple unit" with steam locomotives: do you (or does anyone here) know any details about how this combination is controlled? I would think that being the engineer of a steam locomotive on a passenger train is a job requiring full attention, so the control system OUGHT to be such that the engineer doesn't have to think about what the diesel is doing all the time!

That diesel is CP 4069 which is an FP7 unit. I've never been on board, so I have no idea how they're connected... didn't get enough of a look at it to see if there was an MU cable. I know there was an SBU on the last car, so there's probably an IDU somewhere in the lead unit...!

a little late, but some of the bigger excusion engines have MU controls for controlling trailing diesel locomotives. I talked briefly to Doyle Mccormic(the head cheese with SP 4449). He told me that SP 4449 recieved MU when it was restored to pull the American Freedom train. He said there isn't a control stand, but a box that is like running a diesel in Remote control. kinda cool.