SDfourD
SDfourD Sentiments @ NTW
Fall is upon the midwest in earnest now, and as prior uploads have stated, I find myself most nostalgic at this point on the calendar.
As a young whipper snapper that used to walk the power at WC's New Brighton outpost, the familiar smell of bearing grease in summer and the pound of the compressor resonating off the piles of telephone poles of the adjacent Bell Pole are still very vivid. Work used to spike some of these familiar memories prior to the arrival of Dash 9's for RCO jobs, and now the whir of the turbocharged 16-645 has become more of a treat than ever.
A few weeks back, I noticed the T Yard had accumulated some more power. Two of the stand outs were the MRL 264 here, and the 261 behind it. Of course investigation was in order, and I found no tags hanging off the wall or any other defects. Cool. The ole 264, like the 261, was a friend from another time. Long before I ever called Northtown Yard "home", I had shot it at the diesel shop in the fall of 2006 in the much nicer OLS scheme. Some time later, the 261 was lensed at Hastings on the CP after mom gave in to my demands. That was the summer of 2008.
Now with 2025's calendar growing thinner, I took a few frames of a living, breathing machine that has persevered for almost 60 years. My own memories of it not-withstanding, this same unit, whether CNW 877 or MRL 264, can evoke personal stories from my friends just the same, making it a lot more than some welded steel and lube oil. It has been a steady constant in a life filled with changes, and a similar connection for so many.
The sound of the two stroke, notched to Run 3 to warm up, brings me back to so many points of my life. The squeek of the throttle between notches, the solid 26L handle, the beautiful non-LED glow of the gauge cluster, the rattle of window panes, all an immediate shock to the lucid memory of days gone by.
Man and Machine.
SDfourD Sentiments @ NTW
Fall is upon the midwest in earnest now, and as prior uploads have stated, I find myself most nostalgic at this point on the calendar.
As a young whipper snapper that used to walk the power at WC's New Brighton outpost, the familiar smell of bearing grease in summer and the pound of the compressor resonating off the piles of telephone poles of the adjacent Bell Pole are still very vivid. Work used to spike some of these familiar memories prior to the arrival of Dash 9's for RCO jobs, and now the whir of the turbocharged 16-645 has become more of a treat than ever.
A few weeks back, I noticed the T Yard had accumulated some more power. Two of the stand outs were the MRL 264 here, and the 261 behind it. Of course investigation was in order, and I found no tags hanging off the wall or any other defects. Cool. The ole 264, like the 261, was a friend from another time. Long before I ever called Northtown Yard "home", I had shot it at the diesel shop in the fall of 2006 in the much nicer OLS scheme. Some time later, the 261 was lensed at Hastings on the CP after mom gave in to my demands. That was the summer of 2008.
Now with 2025's calendar growing thinner, I took a few frames of a living, breathing machine that has persevered for almost 60 years. My own memories of it not-withstanding, this same unit, whether CNW 877 or MRL 264, can evoke personal stories from my friends just the same, making it a lot more than some welded steel and lube oil. It has been a steady constant in a life filled with changes, and a similar connection for so many.
The sound of the two stroke, notched to Run 3 to warm up, brings me back to so many points of my life. The squeek of the throttle between notches, the solid 26L handle, the beautiful non-LED glow of the gauge cluster, the rattle of window panes, all an immediate shock to the lucid memory of days gone by.
Man and Machine.