Caption: A little bit too big, and a little bit before their time: Canadian Pacific's last three Fairbanks Morse/Canadian Locomotive Company H24-66 "Train Master" units, 8900, 8904 and 8905, have reached the end of the line and sit tied up at Ogden Shops, awaiting the green light for the scrapper's torch. These ragged, aging 2400-horsepower beasts were the biggest of the big in the mid-50's and part of 21 that CP originally owned. They had last worked hump duties at the nearby Alyth Yard, each paired with a chop-nosed GP9 (and before that, were assigned to Trail BC to work the steep Warfield Hill leading to the Cominco smelter). At this point, all of their sister 6-axle units had been retired and scrapped starting in the mid-60's.

8900 is notable as it was the first unit built for CP, jointly by FM in the US and finished at CLC in Kingston (all later units were built by CLC). It was originally outfitted with a single steam generator for dual freight/passenger service. 8904 was the final survivor of 4 units (8901-8904) delivered with two steam generators housed in a full-width short hood for passenger service (all removed and hoods narrowed once the passenger trains they worked in Saskatchewan and Manitoba were discontinued in 1960). And 8905 was the first of the standard production freight units built (8905-8920).

Into the 1970's, CP still had a healthy fleet of 4-axle FM/CLC units assigned in the west to Nelson and Alyth, including C-Liners and smaller H16-44 units, but rising maintenance costs and a traffic downturn in 1975 spelled the end for CP's FM/CLC fleet, and they were rounded up en masse that year for scrapping. Their opposed-piston engines weren't really the best suited for railroading conditions, but their popularity and reputation in the marine industry gave railroads an easy client to sell the engines out of scrapped units to.

The trio pictured here managed to survive a bit longer in hump service, until they were rounded up in December 1975 to be stored serviceable (due to their excessive exhaust fumes getting sucked into the yard office ventilation system when they idled nearby). GP7/9 and B-units replaced them on the hump jobs.

After a few months, all three were noted as tied up unserviceable effective May 10th 1976, and the authorization was given to scrap them not long after. Units 8900 and 8904 were cut up for scrap at Ogden Shops in August of 1976, but 8905 was set aside for historical purposes and later donated to the Canadian Railway Museum (Exporail) in Delson QC. It remains the last intact FM/CLC Train Master in existence.

Original photographer unknown, Dan Dell'Unto collection slide.