Cordova Bay Station - CPR Momentum

2003-

Issue 1 June 2003

Canadian Pacific Railway Employee Communications
Room 500 401-9th Ave S.W. Calgary AB T2P 4Z4

MORE HORSEPOWER
Greg Gormick Correspondent

GE locomotive CP 8568 pulls a string of cars full of ethylene glycol pas milepost 103, just east of Lake Louise, Alberta, on what is known to railroaders as Morant's Curve.

New GE locomotives add strength to the railway's operating plan

It's 90 rail miles from the nearest CPR track, but it's still a CPR town. That's because Erie, Pennsylvania, is home to General Electric Transportation Systems and the breeding stable for the super powered iron horses that are the pride of today's CPR locomotive fleet.

CPR took delivery of 32 new GE AC4400 high-horsepower locomotives in January 2003. Nine more arrived the first week in February. "The addition of these locomotives, known in-house as CP5s, brings our AC fleet to 427 units", said Brad Murphy, general manager of CPR's Network Management Centre. "They will be used primarily in coal and other bulk service in Western Canada".

Strolling the tree-lined main street of GE's 700-acre locomotive works is to experience railroading's past, present, and future. The past is represented by the oldest of the plant's buildings, which span the years from 1911 to 1982. In these brick erecting shops legendary locomotives of yesteryear were sired. Everything from GG-1 electrics for the Pennsylvania Railroad's 100-mph northeast corridor in the 1930s to the familiar "U-Boats" that thrust GE into the mainstream of diesel-electric locomotive production in the '60s - and thousands more before, after, and in between.

Today CPR's new AC4400CW diesel-electrics are among those rolling off the production line. "The new units have state-of-the-art technology, air conditioning for crew comfort, and the ability to deliver fuel savings up to 18 percent over existing DC locomotives", Brad said. "They will provide us with consistent service, enhance our ability to handle revenue growth, and enable us to effectively run our Integrated Operating Plan".

The new CPR locomotives are part of the more than $1 billion US worth of high-tech, microprocessor-controlled motive power born during the last eight years in a plant that works with the precision of a Swiss watch.

"It's not like an automotive assembly plant, where the cars move in a straight line down a production line", says Denny Taylor, GE's manager of customer support. " Once a week, we have an all-hands meeting where we discuss what, when, and how everything will occur. It may appear somewhat chaotic, but we're actually very unified when you examine the entire process from design to final delivery".

Heavy steel is cut for the locomotive frames. Cabs and car bodies take shape. Trucks and wheel assemblies are constructed with many components from outside vendors. The 16-cylinder diesel engines come by truck from GE's Grove City plant, 86 miles south of Erie. The AC-traction motors come all the way from their plant in Peterborough, Ontario.

As the massive beasts take shape in the sprawling plant, you have to remind yourself these aren't delicate thoroughbreds. These 210-ton workhorses will be challenged by everything from the searing heat of British Columbia's high plateau country in summer to the bone-chilling cold of Lake Superior's North Shore in winter. Thousands of tons and millions of dollars of time-sensitive freight ride on their performance every time they're let out of the gate.

But in a plant that has turned out thousands of locomotives for service around the world, you can't help but wonder if there is anything unique about the CPR AC4400s. There is, indeed, says Denny Taylor.

"There are hotplates for the crews to make tea in the cabs", he says, breaking into a broad grin. "We had to search high and low for a supplier who could give us one that wouldn't rattle. The CPR challenged us to lower the noise level in the cab by two decibels. We reduced the sound of the air conditioner and used baffle panels and insulation on the back wall. But those hotplates; we had quite a time getting one that fits the bill".

As the GE slogan goes, Denny said, "We bring good things to life".

Above left: Outshopped at the GE plant in Erie, Pa. Above Right: The last step is to brand the iron horses with lettering and logo.

THE REDCOATS ARE COMING!

Building a "full-scale" model locomotive

The locomotive platforms are upside down for wiring and air-pipe assembly. Then the 150-ton overhead crane gingerly picks them up, turns them over and places them on massive steel sawhorses. There they receive their engines, cabs, and other sub-assemblies.

Now, the locomotives begin to look like locomotives. The crane lifts and mates them with their trucks, their next trip is on their own wheels, behind a Bobcat tractor to the paint shop. Here they emerge as distinctly CPR. The bodies are sprayed a fiery red. The handrails, external electrical receptacles and air fittings get high-visibility, colour-coded paint. And the huge white letters, numbers, and golden beaver decals are applied.

As a paint shop worker applies the GE builder's decal to a locomotive's right flank (no more metal builder's plates to go missing), he hears there's a CPR visitor in the building. He cheerfully calls out, "The redcoats are coming!"

Cloaked in their brilliant red coats, the CPR AC4400s get a transfer table ride to "Locomotive Test and Ship". There they are briefly stabled with multi-hued locomotives they may never meet again. Everything from Australian coal-train power to sleek Amtrak passenger units. The test crews mount them for their first gallop under their own power on GE's four-mile test track, laid with every gauge from broad to narrow.

"Each of your locomotives requires about 650 operator verifications, sign offs, and quality checks", says GE test manager Dick Fairchild. "We configure the computers and program each unit. We run them up and down the test track in every throttle and dynamic braking position. We make any corrections, configure the brakes, clean and fuel them, then sign off".

Before being released to Norfolk Southern for movement to home turf on CPR rails at Buffalo or Chicago, the locomotives are posed for builder's photographs at a bucolic point on the test track, often beside the pond.