Caption: You might have seen this photo in black-and-white before: maybe in the pages of Dean & Hanna's Canadian Pacific Diesel Locomotives book, or maybe on Ray Kennedy's Old Time Trains page on Toronto Yard.

Three of CP's six GMD SW9 switchers, 7403, 7400 and 7405 (all in faded script paint) work CP's Toronto (Agincourt) Yard, pulled back all the way to Kennedy Road on the hump lead while drilling a long cut of cars over the hump. On the right, CP #931 gets ready to depart westbound (power appears to be an M636, a GMD unit, one of the two 900-series leased Alco RS27's, and an FB unit)

The six 1200hp SW9 units were built by GMD London in 1953 and were the highest horsepower switchers on CP's roster at the time, and they pre-dated CP's later SW1200RS units by a number of years. They were initially based in Western Canada out of the Kootaney-Kettle Valley territory for work train and snowplow use, and later transferred to Calgary-Revelstoke. Photos show them at Field, Revelstoke, and Banff, sometimes in use switching passenger consists out. They were equipped with larger separate front numberboards, 3-chime air horns and spark arrestors (later removed), a practice CP did for units that would sometimes see mainline use. Some appear to have also worked out of New Brunswick for a brief time. In the mid-1960's they were all rounded up and sent east to be the main hump power at CP's new Toronto Yard in Agincourt.

As part of their conversion to hump duties, the six 7400's were fitted with non-standard MU (first only on the rear, then 7400-03 on both ends) intended to run in multiples, and received a few other modifications: 7400-7403 were equipped as hump mother units with cab signals, slow speed hump control, and had their 3-chime horns re-mounted on the roof for a signal receiver to be mounted in the original horn bracket. 7404 and 7405 ended up as trail use only, and just had MU on the rear and no signal receiver equipment. The units originally operated in sets of two, but when more power was needed they ran in sets of three, with three Toronto-assigned SW1200RS units joining them to give enough units for another set of three for hump use (in trail-use only, with the 7400's receiving standardized MU at that time).

The six SW9's worked through three different paint schemes during their time at Toronto Yard (block, script here, and then action red) until the early 80's when they were rebuilt at Winnipeg's Weston Shops under CP's 10 year motive power plan as SW9u units 1200-1205 (not in order). As GP9u's took over hump duties, the SW9's found other yard and local switching work. Some were deployed elsewhere on the system, others eventually converted to 1000-series slugs for use with GP9u mother units. All are off the roster today, and even the Agincourt hump is no more.

David M. More photo, Dan Dell'Unto collection slide.