On Friday Canadian Pacific ES44AC No. 8781, the Hapag-Lloyd unit – already nicknamed “Orange Crush” by railfans (for the REM song) – came through Cleveland leading the I166 which was formerly Q166. I caught it at Berea in late morning and at East 361st Street in Willoughby in early afternoon.
Photographs by Todd Dillon
Back in February Canadian Pacific announced that it was bringing back its beaver herald although it wasn’t until July that the modified logo began appearing on locomotives.
CP used the beaver herald, which features a beaver, a maple leaf, a shield, the company name and the date of the railroad’s incorporation, previously, but dropped it for a more contemporary look.
The beaver has a long tradition at CP, having first been used on a company herald in 1886.
Here in the states we might think of the maple leaf as symbolic of Canada, but the beaver is our northern neighbor’s official symbol of sovereignty.
Between 1886 and 1929, the beaver appeared on four renditions of the CP herald, which featured a shield as its dominant element. In three of those iterations, the beaver appeared atop the shield.
The beaver went on hiatus between 1929 and 1946 when the CP herald was, again, shaped like a shield but featured the slogan “World’s Greatest Travel System.”
In 1946, CP brought the beaver back and it sat atop the shield through three generations of heralds. In 1968, CP decided to give itself a more “progressive look” and adopted a triangle C logo.
Other heralds would follow including one that featured the Canadian and U.S. flags. That was an effort to show that CP was a North American railroad and not just a Canadian one.
To celebrate its independent status, which included resuming use of the name Canadian Pacific Railways, CP resurrected the beaver and shield in 1997 in a bid to give itself a retro look.
Some corporations can only sit still with their image for a few years, so the beaver was put out to marsh in 2007.
CP adopted a minimalist approach with only its name “Canadian Pacific” appearing in its herald. Things got even more concise in 2012 when the herald became simply the letters CP.
Now the beaver, the maple leaf and the shield are back. Unlike the most recent beaver herald, the current logo does not feature solid gold shading in the shield. Instead, the shield has horizontal stripes.
The latest version of the beaver herald is expected to become widespread as CP ramps up a program to repaint its locomotive fleet. The herald will also adorn rebuilt locomotives.
AC400CW No. 9817 wore the previous beaver herald. It is shown leading CSX train Q166 through Berea this past Sunday sporting the new herald.
The Q166 and its counterpart, Q165, are CP run-through trains that use CSX between Chicago and Buffalo, New York.
Just over two hours after the Q166 passed by, the Q165 came rolling through Berea. It is always a good outing when you catch both CP run-through trains on the same day.
And the cherry on the top of this treat was the eastbound “salad shooter” with its usual Union Pacific motive power, shown in the bottom photo.
Train Q165 roars past the Lake Shore Railway Museum in North East, Pennsylvania.
On a couple of back-to-back outings I had the good luck of seeing Canadian Pacific motive power on four trains.
Two of them were Q165 and Q166, which are Chicago-Buffalo, New York, run through trains on CSX that have been operating for a few years now.
I used to somewhat regularly see one of those trains at Berea, but that hasn’t been the case for a while.
I’ve only seen both of them in the same day twice and each time I was in North East, Pennsylvania.
I also found CP motive power leading a pair of Norfolk Southern trains, the 216 and the 67X. One of those was moving and the other was tied down.
I didn’t mind seeing so much red and wouldn’t mind seeing it again now that CP has resumed putting its beaver tail logo on the flanks of some locomotives.
The light was less than ideal to get Q166, which was one of five consecutive eastbounds allowed to move as CSX was single-tracking the Erie West Subdivision between North East, Pennsylvania, and a point in New York York State.
A pair of CPs lead NS 216 through the vineyard country near Bort Road in North East, Pennsylvania.
The first of two views of NS train 67X tied down near Lewis Road in Olmsted Falls, Ohio.
There’s a story behind this photograph of Canadian National No. 8896 leading CSX train Q165 westward through Berea that is not obvious from looking at the image. But that is true of most back stories.
The story began about two weeks earlier. It was mostly sunny day and I wanted to watch trains.
I had not been railfanning in more than a month. I initially went to Olmsted Falls where the most exciting thing I saw was one locomotive pulling one boxcar.
The plan was to spend some time in the Falls and then bop over to Berea to catch some more NS and some CSX.
I pulled into the lots used by railfans by Berea Union Depot Taverne. I got out of my car and got back in on the passenger side.
I had scarcely settled into my seat when I heard the rumble of an approaching locomotive. It was westbound Q165 and the CP unit on the lead gleamed nice and bright in the winter sunlight.
I grabbed my camera, but it was too late to even get a shot through the window, let along to get out of the car for a grab shot.
If only I had looked down the tracks to see if there was an eastbound on CSX. Woulda, coulda, shoulda but I didn’t. I spent the rest of the day beating myself up over that missed photo.
It wasn’t long before clouds began rolling in and that nice sunlight vanished. By the time CSX ran another westbound through Berea the skies had turned cloudy.
That was then and this is now. Fellow Akron Railroad Club members Marty Surdyk, Ed Ribinskas and I decided to get together for lunch on a Sunday afternoon at the BUDT.
Afterwards we hung around for a while to watch trains.
With heavy overcast skies it was not a good day to make photographs although I had my camera next to me.
It was about time to head home when Marty said he wanted to check out the Dave McKay plaque. We got out to walk down there and on a whim I went back to get my camera.
This time I did look down the CSX tracks and did see a train coming. I wasn’t inclined to photograph it given the low light.
But as the headlight got closer I zoomed out my telephone lens to take a look. The nose was all red. It was the Q165 and it had two CP units in the motive power consist.
Had it been a CSX locomotive or a rent-a-wreck I probably would have put down my camera. But the memory of missing the last CP locomotive in Berea that I had seen was still fresh in my mind.
This time I was ready. The image is not as good as what I could have made two weeks earlier in the bright sunlight.
But who knows? Someday I might look at this image and it will bring back fond memories. That’s the nice thing about photographs. How you feel about them today is not necessarily how you will feel about them months or even years from now.
For now it will be a reminder to always look down the track when you arrive at a photo location because you never know what might be bearing down on you.
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