Cordova Bay Station - CPR Momentum

2003-

Issue 1 June 2003

Canadian Pacific Railway Employee Communications
Room 500 401-9th Ave S.W. Calgary AB T2P 4Z4

MASTERS OF THE WEST
Jonathan Hanna Corporate Historian

Our Train Masters were mostly western locomotives, ranging from Winnipeg to southern BC.

For a brief period these powerful diesel-electric engines were the heavy-haul workhorses of the CPR

The Canadian Locomotive Company (CLC), a trusted supplier of steam and diesel locomotives to both CPR and CN, convinced each of the major Canadian railways, in 1955, to buy a Train Master. The Train Master model H24-66 was CPR's highest horsepower diesel-electric locomotive yet. Fairbanks-Morse built the prototypes in Beloit, Wisconsin, and CLC finished the detail work in Kingston, Ontario.

The Train Master housed a Fairbanks-Morse 2,400-h.p., 12-cylinder, opposed piston submarine engine, not unlike those that powered half the US Second World War submarine fleet. Whereas in submarines the diesel engine lay flat, in locomotives it was upright.

Until then CPR's most powerful locomotives were the three 2,250-h.p. General Motors (Electro-Motive Division) E8A passenger diesel-electrics used on the Montreal-Boston run. These locomotives needed two engine blocks - for a total of 24 cylinders - to produce 150 less horsepower.

CPR liked what they saw in the Train Master and ordered 20 more, delivered in 1956. CN didn't like it, and never ordered another. Four of the new order of Train Master locomotives came with steam generators - two each. These locomotives, numbered 8901 to 8904, could be used in freight and passenger service. Although Train Masters were quite a large locomotive - 20 metres (66 feet) long - they couldn't quite accommodate two steam generators. So CLC added bulges over the walkways on the short end, so both generators would fit. At first Train Masters operated long nose forward, but that put the engineer some 15 metres (50 feet) from the front of the locomotive. CPR reversed the controls on its Train Masters and most of the shorter H16-44s between 1959 and 1967 to run them short hood forward. CPR also removed the two steam generators from each of the 8901 to 8904 Train Masters in 1960 and narrowed the short hood exposing the walkways. In 1961 CPR removed the single steam generator from its prototype Train Master - No. 8900.

Train Masters were mostly a western locomotive ranging from Winnipeg to southern B.C. A small handful tested in Ontario, and some saw episodic use on transfer service in Montreal and Toronto. The Cominco smelter at Trail and fertilizer plant at Warfield, B.C., used Train Masters in heavy drag transfer service, including up a switchback with a grade of more than four percent.

CPR didn't keep their Train masters in service very long. No. 8902 lasted only nine years, 13 more Train Masters lasted barely a dozen years, another three lasted until 1972, No. 8903 was sold in 1974 and the final three - Nos. 8900, 8904, and 8905 - were retired in 1976. No. 8900 had the distinction of being the first and last Train Master on the system. CPR kept No. 8905 in its heritage collection and eventually donated it to the Canadian Railroad Historical Association's Canadian Railway Museum in St. Constant, Quebec. It is the only Train Master left in Canada and the United States.

	Vital Statistics
Numbers	8900-8920
Class	DRS-24
Builder	Fairbanks-Morse/CLC (8900) Canadian Locomotive Co. (8901-8920)
Outshopped	13 July 1955 (8900)
Builder's Model	H24-66
Horsepower	2,400
Cylinders	12
Axles	6
Maximum speed	75 mph (121 kph)
Length	66 ft. (20 m)
Width	10 ft. - 4.5 in. (3.2 m)
Height	15 ft. (4.6 m)
Weight	388,000 lbs. (176,000 kg) (8900)
Original Cost	$282,611 (8900)