Photo by James Lalande, ONR North Bay yard, May 2000.
SD40-2 1734 (GMD, March 1973) pauses in the North Bay yard with GP9 1604 (GMD, January 1957).
It's getting hard to see the SD40-2's in North Bay. Since the arrival of the SD75I's, most of them have been leased to NS and run in the United States. This particular one is not on lease but is used by CN to run off horsepower-hours owed to them. So it only occasionally ends up in North Bay.
When CN train 451 (ONR train 251) runs north from Toronto to North Bay on CN trackage, and then from North Bay to Englehart on ONR trackage, ONR owes CN "horsepower hours" for any CN units on this train. They pay this off by giving this locomotive and two others to CN to run as it sees fit. They are used on CN's eastern lines and can been seen as far away as Halifax.
This unit has been slightly repainted. The handrails ends are now white -they were originally yellow. This was probably to abide by CN's safety regulations. Also note that the trillium below the cab is gone, replaced by the unit number alone.