CN HR616 Operations

I guess I don't pay enough attention to canadian diesel fleets, but saturday morning I was having breakfast at the local Edwardsburg, MI, choke-and-puke along the GTW/CN main, and a train passed with one of these leading:
http://www.funet.fi/index/railways/Cana ... cn2100.jpg
I wasn't aware any MLW/BBD units were still active - was this a rare sighting? I thought it was some type of MLW because the trucks looked like nothing EMD or GE would use, it had a full cowl body, and the "draper taper" behind the cab.

I also saw a GP9 later that day on the same line, not something I see every day. My office is on NS's ex-NYC main, and until the CR/NS merger, I saw nothing but the finest new power available. Now NS will send a hotshot through with 8 random older units...

CN hasn't had a MLW/BBD unit in active service since 1998, not counting the handful of RS units that were on the BC Rail roster when CN took over. Eleven of the remaining HR616s were sold to National Railway Equipment so it's possible you saw a NREX HR616 on lease.

You might have seen a GE C40-8M. They bear some resemblence to the HR-616. http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=62817 Head on. http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=134357

those GE's look like virtual doubles to the HR616... maybe that's what I saw. Shoot.