CN GP-9 -> "GenSet" switcher

[Mike Boucher]

Found this youtube video.  A documentary where National Railway Equipment Co, in Illinois, takes a scrap Canadian National GP-9, strips it down to the bare frame, and then uses that as the platform for a new "GenSet" switcher.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ACjJnrn1lc

 

I have no clue what TV network this was originally shown on, as interestingly enough, even though the company is in the US, and the narrator has an "American accent", all the measurements mentioned are in metric, and prices are in Euros. 

 

Light on detail of the mechanics, but still an interesting view if you've got 50 minutes to spare...

 

There are also a few glaring issues where its clear the scriptwriter/narrator has no clue what they're saying, such as showing them removing what's clearly looks like an air compressor, and saying they're removing the "radiator".

 

Also wish they showed more on rebuilding the trucks.

 

Mike

[Prof Klyzlr]

Dear Mike,

 

That would be "MegaStructures Breakdown", a doco series by Discovery channel.

 

http://www.getprice.com.au/MEGA-STRUCTURES-BREAKDOWN-Phantom-Jet-Locomotive-Scrapyard-Gpnc_342--66479631.htm

 

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

[JWB]

Many such programs are made in Canada, due to more favorable labor conditions for filmmaking there, so that might explain the script and narration. For that matter, it's probably not hard to find a Canadian narrator who can talk American!

[shortliner]

Many such programs are made in Canada, due to more favorable labor conditions for filmmaking there, so that might explain the script and narration. For that matter, it's probably not hard to find a Canadian narrator who can talk American!

 

.......unless they live in Quebec - where the use of English in any form, is frowned upon 

[Adrian Wintle]

.......unless they live in Quebec - where the use of English in any form, is frowned upon 

 

The use of any language other than Quebecois (a rather archaic variant of French) is officially* frowned upon (currently more so than normal), which doesn't mean that other languages aren't used effectively (it does depend on which part of Quebec you are in).

 

Quoting amounts in Euros would tend to indicate that the program was not originally made for the North American market, where you would be hard-pressed to find an average person who knows what a Euro is, let alone its value.

 

*i.e. there is legislation

 

Adrian

[Dtwo]

I've just found this thread. I have seen this programme on TV here, in the UK, on I think either Discovery or National Geographic. One thing I noticed when I watched it was that all through the programme they were building a loco with a typical American mainline diesel cab, but when it's released it's a switcher cab! In the same series there's a programme titled "Death of a Locomotive", it's about two KCS SD40-2s entering a scrapyard to be cut up. It's a sad story, but interesting too.

 

David

[trisonic]

Since actually living here I have concluded that most Canadians sound nothing like Americans. It's likely to be an American reading a script.

 

To avoid annoying Adrian I will not go into the Canadian who said to me (really, in Halifax) "you can goo oot and aboot in a boot, eh?"

 

Best, Pete.

[doctor quinn]

The same team seems to produce a series called "Strip the City" showing hidden bits of cities (metros, sewers, bridges etc). The two episodes I saw covered Toronto and London and it trailed Bahrain.

 

Nick

[Clive Mortimore]

Slightly OT but to do with French speaking Canadians. My Brother-in-Law is a retired teacher of deaf children in Canada and he told me about a problem he had with a French speaking family. They wanted their child to learn French as they had read on the internet that French sign language was different to English. He tried to explain that she would be unable to communicate with any of the other children but they kept interrupting him demanding she was not taught English. In the end he very assertively told them she would not learn English signing. To which they were relieved until he continued and told them she would be learning American. Apparently in Canada, American signing is used but for the French speaking kids they do have teachers who teach them in spoken French and sign American at the same time.

 

And also OT but to do with Canadian languages, yesterday on radio 4 they had a short piece of a Gaelic song recorded in a Gaelic speaking community in Nova Scotia.

[Adrian Wintle]

Since actually living here I have concluded that most Canadians sound nothing like Americans. It's likely to be an American reading a script.

 

To avoid annoying Adrian I will not go into the Canadian who said to me (really, in Halifax) "you can goo oot and aboot in a boot, eh?"

 

Best, Pete.

 

The Maritimes are a different world, and Newfoundland is even more different (half my team is based in St. John's, so I know this first-hand). There are regional accents all across Canada.

 

Adrian

[pH]

This thread is really going OT. However -

And also OT but to do with Canadian languages, yesterday on radio 4 they had a short piece of a Gaelic song recorded in a Gaelic speaking community in Nova Scotia.

I believe there are more people who identify themselves as Gaelic speakers in Nova Scotia than there are in Scotland. 

 

There are regional accents all across Canada.

I'm not sure I'd agree about 'all across', Adrian. Definitely as far west as Ontario, but after that I have problems telling where anyone is from (with exceptions for people who have grown up in communities settled by groups from a single country.) European settlement, using mainly English as a common language, didn't really happen till after mass transportation began, and that brought such a mix of people that there wasn't the possibility of a single 'local' accent being developed in any one place. And that was fairly quickly followed by mass communications, which tend to further blend accents.

[jjb1970]

Are all NRE Genset switchers built on recycled frames? I never realised they used old frames, learn something new every day!!

[shortliner]

Gaelic in Scotland is largely confined to the West Coast, the north-west Highlands, and the Western Isles. Although many street signs and some roadsigns in the Highlands are adorned with the Gaelic equivalent, apart from a few (a very few) TV and Radio programmes, I suspect that there are indeed, more speakers of it in Nova Scotia (and Ireland) than in Scotland. One or two words survive in the English version of Scots, like "burrach", "kent" and "stramash" - but not many.

[jjb1970]

Just as the French speakers of Quebec are more French than French people in some ways so it is common to find the descendants of Scots and Irish settlers in the old Commonwealth countries are more Scots or Irish than people from Scotland and Ireland.

[shortliner]

.....and why there are so many Clan Societies around the world who hold their own gatherings and games every year, and why we get so many tourists from far-away places

[Adrian Wintle]

Just as the French speakers of Quebec are more French than French people in some ways so it is common to find the descendants of Scots and Irish settlers in the old Commonwealth countries are more Scots or Irish than people from Scotland and Ireland.

 

From 'The Old Sod', a song by Spirit of the West (a western Canadian folk rock band)

"There's none more Scots than the Scots abroad"

[jjb1970]

The Borders were trying to get in on the act by trying to replicate the appeal of the Highland Clans and making the old Reiver families into "clans" which is historically incorrect as whilst the reiving families were certainly similar to clans in some ways they never had the attachment to a given bit of land that was a characteristic of the actual clans. However given my ancestors were from sunny industrial Clyde Bank and I was born in Cumbria its probably best for me to stay out of that particular argument!!

[shortliner]

,,and just to remind expats what they are missing

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZrdo1PuUvQ

 

Oh, and that photo is 22 miles down the road from me, going Southbound down the A9

 

Apologies - we better give the OP his thread back , after wandering away a bit!

[jjb1970]

There's a fish and chip shop in Burlington Ontario that does an excellent haggis and chips, but not as nice as the haggis in Milton Keynes. There is a Scots butcher here that does awesome haggis, at the risk of upsetting people much better than any I've had in Scotland.

[shortliner]

There's a fish and chip shop in Burlington Ontario that does an excellent haggis and chips, but not as nice as the haggis in Milton Keynes. There is a Scots butcher here that does awesome haggis, at the risk of upsetting people much better than any I've had in Scotland.

 

....and we have Scotlands Champion Haggis Maker just down the Road in Dingwall. 

[jjb1970]

You can't beat a good haggis, unfortunately it suffers from a similar problem as pies and sausages in having been devalued by so much muck and rubbish out there. Get a good one though and it is great!

[pH]

and just to remind expats what they are missing

 

Apologies - we better give the OP his thread back , after wandering away a bit!

I think the OP probably lost interest a long time ago!

 

An alternative view of Scotland from abroad, from "The Exile's Dream of Home" by Walter McCorrisken -

 

Ah remember weel the auld hoose,

Weird things crawled up the wa'.

They crawled upon the foosty cheese -

That's why I shot the craw.

 

Just kidding - I'm actually trying to book a flight to Glasgow next month, but the Air Transat website isn't cooperating at the moment.

[jjb1970]

I'm trying to go the other way, trying to sell a house here so we can all move to Ontario. I've been on a Canadian payroll for 8 months now but still stuck here in England

[Mike Boucher]

I think the OP probably lost interest a long time ago!

 

 

I'm still here.    But seeing as my maternal grandparents were born in the south of Nova Scotia, there's still interest here in the direction we've wavered off to...   (and if there's anyone who cares, Lower West Pubnico, NS.  About as far south as you can and still be on land in NS)  And my father's side is from Quebec.

 

And to take us totally off topic, I told this Joke at the Montreal Live Steamers once:

 

Q: Do you know how to spell 'Canada'

A: C eh? n eh? d eh?  

[dana]

early Spring back east ?  train video clip from a 1973 music film done by stomping tom

connors

 

I love the ladies reactions and the ending  which speaks that the traveling ladies found thier canadian cowboy and CANADA  instead of this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=8WAsV0HZ0D4&NR=1

 

way to go Molson