Caption: CP Rail Alco S2 7020 idles between duties in the Liberty Village area near CP's Parkdale Yard (note boxcars in the background, with the yard office obscured by the building on the left). The industrial leads in the foreground were for switching the sprawling John Inglis plant off Strachan Avenue, as well as leading to the old TG&B "Wharf Lead" that ran south over the CN Oakville Sub at Cabin E (multiple diamonds) to access the downtown harbourfront trackage. The photographer would have been standing behind the old Hinde & Dauch Paper building off Hanna Avenue.

Located west of downtown Toronto in the parcel of land between Bathurst Street and Strachan Avenue and bordered by the rail lines to the north and south, Liberty Village was an industrial powerhouse for many decades, including contributing to the wartime production efforts. But by the 80's a state of industrial decay had set in, and over time many of the old industries, sidings and spurs, and CP's Parkdale Yard all disappeared. Gentrification came to the area around the early 2000's, with loft conversions and heavy condo construction turning a former gritty industrial area into a trendy and desirable neighbourhood for young professionals working downtown (for a closer look at the gritty 80's Liberty Village, see Patrick "collations" Cummings' Flickr album here).

Ancient little Alco/MLW switchers like CP 7020 had been the primary local and yard power across the system since the steam era, lifting and spotting cars at customers in the industrial districts such as Liberty Village as well as working yard, transfer and local road switching jobs. 7020 was turned out by Alco's Schenectady Works NY plant in 1944 and assigned to Toronto, where it spend most of its working life. By the 80's, CP's Geep rebuild program spelled the end of the aging steam-era switchers. After retirement in the mid-80's, 7020 was donated by CP to the City of Toronto for a future museum, and sat stored out of sight inside the shuttered ex-CP John Street roundhouse for years until the TRHA established a museum there in the mid-late 2000's.

B. Ottaway photo, Dan Dell'Unto collection slide.