CPR's Empress 2816 Hudson class steam locomotive came to Okotoks Labor Day for our local celebrations, built for the CPR in 1930 the 4-6-4 wheel arrangement (4 wheels under the cylinders 6 driving wheels and 4 wheels supporting the firebox) was first used by the New York Central System in 1927 who named this class of high-speed passenger locomotives after the Hudson River they ran along out of New York City to Albany. Originally a coal burner 2816 finished her career in commuter service of Montréal, Québec, and sold as surplus in 1964. Repatriated by the CPR from Steamtown in Scranton, Pennsylvania back in 1998 and moved to Vancouver British Columbia where she was totally rebuilt, and converted to burning oil at a cost of $3,000,000. While used primarily for special excursion trips, she just came back from an extensive tour down to Montréal, Minneapolis and Chicago in July, 2816 was returning to Calgary from a trip to Cranbrook British Columbia. Here are some photos of her visit to our community during a stopover on the way home, it was a great opportunity for me to visit with some of my old friends from the Railway.

...outstanding pictures Larry!!!particularly enjoyed the shots of the cab interior...spent some time studying them...really great!!!thanks...

Larry, is the large wheel on the engineer's side of the cab what is usually called the 'Johnson Bar', or reversing gear control in U.S. locomotives? I don't believe I've ever seen a control quite like that before in one down here. Regards. Mark

Thanks Larry for the great pictures, i really like the red Ford fire truck alot.
It must have really been neat to work on the railway with these big machines.

Mark:

Yes the large wheel is part of an air activated reversing gear control. As locomotives evolved the "Johnson Bar" was done away with, and these power reversers made the engineers life a lot easier. The American Locomotive Company (Alco) manufactured a lot of these appliances.

Thank you Larry. Learned something new today! High regards. Mark

is that on narrow gauge tracks or what they call narrow gauge tracks in the us?