#CANADIANS BRUTAL ICE STORM IT CITY GENERATOR#

Rather than power the wheels through hydraulic or mechanical transmissions, these massive motors turned traction generators that could send juice to motors connected to the wheels.

#CANADIANS BRUTAL ICE STORM IT CITY GENERATOR#

CN obliged, sending over two Montreal Locomotive Works M-420s per the 1998 issue of Trains, as recounted by members of its forum.ĬN M-240 locomotive serving as a generator in January 1998īoth locomotives were powered by Alco 251C prime movers 131.4-liter, single-turbo diesel V12s making some 1,950 horsepower according to the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences. Having reportedly heard of locomotives being used to generate electricity during another emergency years prior, Boucherville’s Mayor Francine Gadbois asked the Canadian National Railway to lend the city a couple of units.

This unusual solution to a power problem, which was also covered by Gizmodo last week, unfolded in Boucherville, a Montreal suburb just northeast of famed Formula 1 racetrack Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Rather than leave town, though, one Canadian mayor stepped up to bring in the biggest mobile power generators they could get their hands on: Diesel-electric freight train locomotives. Knocking over transmission towers, the storms deprived up to 1.35 million people of electricity, in some cases for weeks (sound familiar?). 4-10, 1998, a trio of massive ice storms wracked the northeastern United States and parts of Canada.

Canadians brutal ice storm it city