ACR 415-432 ex-Canadian Pacific CoachesExterior views:
415 at the Minnesota Transportation Museum, 2000. Note that 415 does not feature the typical bear and paw prints graphic. CHARLES BARTHOLD
416 at Steelton, 1983 TED ELLIS
416 at the Minnesota Transportation Museum, 2000 CHARLES BARTHOLD
417 at the Minnesota Transportation Museum, 2000 CHARLES BARTHOLD
418 at Steelton, Nov, 16, 1974 TED ELLIS
422 at Steelton, April 1972 freshly painted in the maroon and grey colours TED ELLIS
423 at the Minnesota Transportation Museum, 2000 CHARLES BARTHOLD
424 at the Minnesota Transportation Museum, 2000 CHARLES BARTHOLD
425 at Frater, 1983 SEAN TROFIN
426 at Steelton, 1983 TED ELLIS
427 at the Minnesota Transportation Museum, 2000 CHARLES BARTHOLD
428 at Steelton, 1996 BLAIR SMITH
430 at the Minnesota Transportation Museum, 2000 CHARLES BARTHOLD
431 at the Minnesota Transportation Museum, 2000 CHARLES BARTHOLD
432 at the Minnesota Transportation Museum, 2000 CHARLES BARTHOLD
Side view of vestibule CHARLES BARTHOLD
End view of vestibule passageway and door CHARLES BARTHOLD
Non-vestibule end CHARLES BARTHOLD
Interior seating:
416 (red seats) CHARLES BARTHOLD
417 (red seats) CHARLES BARTHOLD
423 (red seats) CHARLES BARTHOLD
424 (golden-yellow seats) CHARLES BARTHOLD
430 (red seats) CHARLES BARTHOLD
431 (brown seats) CHARLES BARTHOLD
432 (brown seats) CHARLES BARTHOLD
Interior dividers:
Type I - solid (from coach 416) CHARLES BARTHOLD
Type II - glass (from coach 431) CHARLES BARTHOLD
Underbody:
Truck - straight equalizer, inside swing hanger truck with truck-mounted clasp brakes CHARLES BARTHOLD
Truck - angled view CHARLES BARTHOLD
Brake Valves CHARLES BARTHOLD
Axle-Driven Generator from coach 431CHARLES BARTHOLD
Air Conditioning compressor unit from coach 416CHARLES BARTHOLD
With the Agawa Canyon Tour Train growing in popularity, the Algoma Central needed to replace their aging fleet of passenger cars, all built in the years before the first world war. So beginning in 1969 18 coaches were acquired from Canadian Pacific. They are all from CP 2200 series of lightweight steel coaches.
There are two variations, which I'll refer to as Type I (ACR 415-420, CPR 2200-2234?) and Type II (ACR 421-432, CPR 2235?-2299). Type I cars were built in 1947 and have steel interior dividers with round windows after the first sixteen seats, Transcold Corp. diesel-powered Air Conditioning unit. Type II coaches were built in 1949 and have a larger axle generator, glass partitions, and Frigidaire electrically powered AC. Both car variations have 4 restrooms, 4 escape windows, GSI straight equalizer trucks with inside swing hangers and clasp brakes and steam heating.
Most cars have coils springs like those in the detail shots of trucks above. However, a couple of cars have leaf spring trucks, shown clearly in the photo of 417 and 418 above. See the chart for individual details.
Number Seat Colour Window Shades* Truck Springs Builder CP Number Disposition Paint(Final) 415 gold ? ? NSC 2233 IANW 415 no bear 416 red pink coil NSC 2227 IANW 416 bear 417 red green leaf NSC 2205 IANW 417 bear 418 ? ? leaf NSC 2213 DME 2000 no bear 419 ? ? ? NSC 2209 DME 2001 bear 420 ? ? coil NSC 2219 ? bear 421 red green coil CCF 2254 CVRX 421 no bear 422 brown ? coil CCF 2244 CVRX 422 bear 423 red grey coil CCF 2265 IANW 423 bear - still painted maroon/grey in 1978 424 gold black ? CCF 2251 IANW 424 bear 425 red ? coil CCF 2268 CVRX 425 bear 426 red green coil CCF 2255 CVRX 426 bear 427 red ? coil CCF 2295 IANW 427 bear 428 red green coil CCF 2277 CVRX 428 bear 429 olive ? coil CCF 2237 CVRX 429 bear 430 red black coil CCF 2273 IANW 430 bear 431 brown grey ? CCF 2262 IANW 431 bear 432 brown black ? CCF 2276 IANW 432 bear*window shades are all a pale white colour on the outside, but the colour of the shades on the side facing the interior of the car tends to vary.
Most of these cars came painted in CP maroon-red with black roofs and some silver with maroon or red letter boards over the windows to match CP's stainless steel cars. At first cars were repainted into the ACR's maroon and grey scheme with the legend "AGAWA-CANYON-TOUR" on the side below the windows, but were eventually all painted silver with red name boards and belt stripes, starting in 1974. At first the silver cars were still lettered with the Agawa Canyon Tour legend (see photo of 418 above) but soon cars were painted with a black bear and its paw prints (see 427 above). Some (but not all) of the cars with the Agawa Canyon Tour lettering had the bear added later and so for some time carried the lettering and the bear. Eventually the tour lettering was removed from these cars. For example, I have seen early photographs of 416 with the Agawa Canyon Tour lettering, but the photo above shows 416 with the black bear on its side. 415 and 421 have nothing on the lower sides, so they probably had the Agawa Canyon Tour lettering. The chart above shows the final paint scheme applied to the coaches.
In 1998, the last six of these cars (421,422,425,426,428,429) were sold to the Chippewa Valley
Railroad (Photos of the ACR coaches on the CVRX 
)
ACR 415-417, 423, 424, 427, 430-432 were auctioned at the Minnesota Transportation museum at the end of May 2001. These cars ended up on a dinner train operation on the Iowa Northern Railway, which later shut down, leaving the cars abandoned on a unused piece of track. No information on where they were before they came to the Museum, but they were likely held by one ore more used railway equipment dealers between the time they were divested by the railway and their sale/auction in 2001.
Coaches 418 and 419 were sold to Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern as nos. 2000 and 2001, the fate of 420 is unknown; it may have been included with the other cars sold to Iowa Northern.
A resin model of the Canadian Pacific 2200-series coach was produced by Norwest Kits & Castings, but this is no longer in production.
BGR Group has
obtained the masters and research materials from Norwest, and is said to be reworking the old Norwest kits, so this may again become available
through BGR at some point in the future.
Decals for Algoma Central passenger equipment are available from Black Cat Decals. This set covers all equipment types in both the maroon and grey and silver schemes, including the Agawa-Canyon-Tour (for both colour schemes) and bear tracks motif for the silver cars.
This page © 2001-2012 Chris VanderHeideHome - Top of page - Back to passenger page - Equipment Guide Main
