CN 9400 was the first Canadian Built Road Locomotive to be put into service from Montreal to Toronto in 1950.
I (Cy Marsden) was a Service Engineer with CGE and left the Montreal Locomotive Works on this unit when it
was delivered to the CNR----I placed it into service on it's maiden trip to Toronto together with the MLW
Service Engineer (George Judd)
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| Posted by on January 1, 2012 | |
As I look at the picture of CN9400 a flood of memories of these units enters my head. The engine room with the V16 9x10 1/2in. cylinder (supercharged) Diesel Engine of 2000HP rotating a direct drive Electrical Generator that provided power to the electric traction motors suspended on the axles. When starting the Diesel Engine, the Generator was used as a starter motor to crank the engine. There were A units (with a cab, as shown above) and B units (with no cab). When I was riding these units along the North Shore of Lake Superior in winter with the temperature minus 40 to 50 degrees, the engine room was pleasantly warm as I checked the instrumentation-----however, the hearing loss experienced later in life from that experience has been no fun--ear protection was not provided in those days. To expand on that, I often think about the test engineers at Alco in Schenectady who would be on the Diesel Engine Test Stands all day, every day in the 1950's without ear protection-----it was truly deafening!!!
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| Posted by on January 2, 2012 | |
Looking at the unit CN9400 you will see that the "horn" arrangement on top of the cab is a multiple group----they are pitched at different levels of sound.
When these units were first built by MLW in Montreal (1950's) they were equiped with a single horn.
Particularly in Northern Ontario around Chapleau, White River and Soux Lookout, the sound of this single horn attracted dozens of female Moose, they would congregate on the track----it obviously sounded like a male call. We killed quite a few-- some being pregnant ----the Railroad men took a lot of Moose Meat home.
The Native Canadians in the area lodged a complaint about their souce of food being killed----------hence the development of the multiple horn cluster that you can now see--------it solved the problem!.
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