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Ontario Northland/Northern Ontario Transportation

Yep the APCUs have been used on the PBX (that's pretty much why they got 'em). With the newly refurb coaches the look is decent compared to whatever they could've done with those old APUs.
Did the APCUs finally enter service? Last I heard there was talk of sending them back to the rebuilder as they couldn't get them to run consistently.

Dan
 
Did the APCUs finally enter service? Last I heard there was talk of sending them back to the rebuilder as they couldn't get them to run consistently.

Dan

From last fall.

apcu4b.jpg


They did have 5 coaches and APU 202 was up front on that run tho.
 
From last fall.

View attachment 311586

They did have 5 coaches and APU 202 was up front on that run tho.
I know that they had done testing with them - that's how they discovered all of the problems with them. As I understood it, they had only used them on selected runs since then as they tried to figure out the bugs - and thus my question.

Dan
 
Good to hear that parties are at least talking, although proposing to terminate a passenger train at what is essentially a ghost town (Oba, StatsCan 2016 = 15) seems curious.. I realize that's as far as Watco purchased
There is no reason it couldn't be extended to Hearst or even Cochrane.
 
Good to hear that parties are at least talking, although proposing to terminate a passenger train at what is essentially a ghost town (Oba, StatsCan 2016 = 15) seems curious.. I realize that's as far as Watco purchased

I took the former ACR train in winter 2014. Most traffic on our return trip was on the southern end, south of Franz. On the way up, it was only myself, a friend, and a group of snowmobile enthusiasts from Wisconsin that rode the whole way up. We were the only ones on the return trip from Hearst until a point halfway between Oba and Franz. Most passengers went from Sault Ste. Marie to their cabins an hour or two north.

Oba has a small CN yard and a crew bunkhouse (useful for overnight train layovers) and and a theoretical connection with the Canadian, and has year-round road access. I guess they decided negotiating with CN for the remaining distance wasn’t worth it.
 
I took the former ACR train in winter 2014. Most traffic on our return trip was on the southern end, south of Franz. On the way up, it was only myself, a friend, and a group of snowmobile enthusiasts from Wisconsin that rode the whole way up. We were the only ones on the return trip from Hearst until a point halfway between Oba and Franz. Most passengers went from Sault Ste. Marie to their cabins an hour or two north.

Oba has a small CN yard and a crew bunkhouse (useful for overnight train layovers) and and a theoretical connection with the Canadian, and has year-round road access. I guess they decided negotiating with CN for the remaining distance wasn’t worth it.

One of the bigger hits when the passenger train stopped was to the remote fishing and hunting lodges - spring/summer/fall - along the line (rail access for customers and supplies is a whole lot cheaper than air), and there aren't that many north of Oba primarily because there aren't that many decent sized lakes adjacent to the line and more logging blocks.

Somebody posted here a while back that there was a fair bit of interchange traffic from Hearst, so perhaps CN decided to keep that section because it was halfways profitable.

Although I haven't driven it, year-round road access is apparently not for the faint of heart; about 3 hours from Hearst on forestry access roads (no doubt with funding from the government to keep them open when they are not cutting/hauling).
 
Something is being announced tomorrow.

But it will involve Northland in some way, since the CEO of same will be in attendance.

1621915115936.png
 
Something is being announced tomorrow.

But it will involve Northland in some way, since the CEO of same will be in attendance.

View attachment 322286
My guess is a date of the reopening of the Northlander. Why? The MPPs are the only PCs that won along the route..The combination of all of them makes me think there is no other thing they would be a part of together.
 
My guess is a date of the reopening of the Northlander. Why? The MPPs are the only PCs that won along the route..The combination of all of them makes me think there is no other thing they would be a part of together.
You're an optimist, but here's to hoping. Personally I think it might be something like an increase to motor coach service - would make the province seem more responsive to the collapse of Greyhound and also offer a cheap substitute for actual Northlander restoration that could be brought up as a deflection tactic.
 

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