Agawa Canyon train power

When CN bought the WC/ACR, they quickly sidelined the F's off the passenger trains. Recently, the ex-Ski Train F40's were brought in to power the trains. I'm a bit baffled by this, as WC was pretty clear the F's were purchased because they were cheap and useful on these passenger trains. I'll buy that. CN ditched the F's because they evidently didn't want specialized equipment around. I'll buy that, too. So why, now, do we have not only specialized equipment, but screamers (IE use more fuel)? Isn't that one step forward, two back? I'm pretty sure M&E unloaded the Maine Eastern F40s in favor of rebuilt FL9's due to lower fuel use, and it seems like the opposite happened at ACR.

I suspect it may be cheaper in the long run to have the F40's matched to the Ski Train Fleet, then retire the older ACR equipment. Back in the day. the Canyon Train was pulled by GP38's with a heater car.

Speaking of the AC, does anyone know:

What happened to the two dome cars that used to be used on the Canyon Train?

What happened to the business car Agawa that used to be available for charter on the AC?

What happened to the Camp Car? It is not listed on the web page for the AC passenger trains.

Thanks.

TNT

TNT, if you you're still wondering I just finished a foray to the Agawa Canyon 9/18/14 on the tour train and the two domes(one ex-CZ or DZ and the other ex-UP) in question are on a siding on the Michigan side about 1000 yards south of the big honking lift bridge, on what's left of the Soo's mostly gone yard . I didn't see the Business Car in the ex-AC shop area from the train (didn't have time to nose around there and get in trouble either damn it)

Interestingly Tadmin's aforementioned screamer's (F40's via Amtrak/Colorado Ski-Train) were in the dog house for stalling out on the SB grade from the canyon with an apparently overloaded tour train from the previous week, the normal 9 & 1/2 hrs roundtrip going 14 plus hrs- not a happy bunch getting into the Sault at 10 pm (it actually might have been much later than that) I think the entire Ski-Train equipment set acquisition was a way for CN to cut it's shop costs on the AC tour train thing; they know F40's and were the original operators of the Tempo cars, have to think it was a no-brainer for them, fuel notwithstanding and may have something to do with the terms of the subsidy as well.

More interestingly and surprisingly the daily regional run going the full length of the AC to Hearst is still running, I understood it was to be killed off this last spring. Frustrated to have missed seeing it from trackside as it caught up with the tour train as we had already boarded for the return leg. But what a fascinating thing to see, a CN GP with a generator car; a baggage (I think) two Budd coaches, and another baggage doing what what trains are supposed to do, local service for the region.
I hope Ottawa gets this and keeps it going, if there was ever an area that can use this kind of service it's this one.

AtlantaHudson wrote:More interestingly and surprisingly the daily regional run going the full length of the AC to Hearst is still running, I understood it was to be killed off this last spring.

The regular passenger run was given a last minute reprieve by the Canadian government for one year only. This was done to give interested parties some time to come up with another way to keep the service running. It's not a daily train but runs tri-weekly.

Staging dome cars outside of the yard and shop is not a good thing. Does anyone know CN's future plans for these?

On another note, I saw that the Agawa was for sale--did it get sold?

TNT