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Caption: Canadian Pacific S3 switcher 6538, still painted in faded maroon & grey block paint, works the Toronto Harbour Commission (THC) trackage at Rees St. Yard, located along Queen's Quay at Rees St. Switching in the shadow of the Gardiner Expressway downtown, timetables indicate this is the THC "Central Harbour Terminals" area.
CP S3 6538, built by MLW in 1955, was equipped with a number of special features applied by CP to some units: front numberboard and front/rear pilot plows for road service, a 3-chime air horn (replacing the old single chime), cab roof cutouts (likely to help deflect exhaust fumes), a spark arrestor, and a watchman's heater for keeping the engine warm when shut down between remote branchline assigments (note short capped stack by main exhaust). Also note the standard-issue yellow rerail frog, hung from under the frame. 6538, like most of CP's Toronto-assigned Alco/MLW switcher units, was stationed and maintained out of CP's John Street Roundhouse downtown, a stone's throw away from Queen's Quay.
By this point in time, GP7u, GP9u and SW1200RSu units were being rebuilt by CP to replace the remaining Alco/MLW switcher fleet. CP 6538 was retired in 1985 and sold to Sidbec-Feruni in Quebec, becoming their 0409. It appears to have become Boston Railway Terminal 0409 (and eventually scrapped).
Rees Street yard was a small stub-ended yard along the THC trackage to serve the various industries along the Toronto harbourfront. East of the yard, the line had streetrunning and street-side running portions all the way to the lead coming from Don Yard. West of Rees Street, the line continued on a private right-of-way and curved north at Bathurst Street, past the old Loblaws warehouse to the main rail corridor (CN accessed the line there, and CP had their "Wharf Lead" from Parkdale Yard that connected to it). As time when on and waterfront industry declined, traffic dwindled, and in the mid-1980's the THC Queen's Quay trackage from Bathurst Street to near Yonge was removed, leaving the eastern trackage to serve Redpath and some other remaining industry, and the Ashbridges Bay/Portlands trackage.
Michael Tedesco photo, Dan Dell'Unto collection slide.
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I could have sworn I had seen this unit, but no, it was 6539 I saw at Schreiber.
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Yeah, 6539 was the Kimberly-Clark switcher at a plant up north after its CP career. Originally they had another one, but its engine clunked out and they got 6539 as a replacement. It was later donated to Schreiber and put on display. It had been another of the regular units that ran out of John Street roundhouse.
I used to work summers down that way. Both CN and CP were down on a regular basis working into pier 4 and Direct Winters trucking and Canada Malting down the west end of the harbour.