Caption: Venturing eastward from CP’s mostly GM west coast in 1976 and across the prairies to Manitoba provided many discoveries, among them a very clean MLW M-636, CP 4730, and consist switching at Minnedosa on Monday 1976-10-04. A particular delight was the first CP GP30, 5000 itself, notable as nearly unique on CP’s roster as Empress of Agincourt CP 8924.

CP’s yard at Minnedosa was as a spur off the mainlines, presumably to take advantage of the level ground along the Little Saskatchewan River rather than being along the significant grades east and west of town.

In the early years of CP’s diesel shop in Port Coquitlam, 5000 and 5001 and numerous GP35s were assigned for maintenance and local service, so I had an opportunity to learn how they were an early step into solid-state electronics (silicon power diodes instead of selenium rectifier stacks, and used with AC reactors to control generator excitation, pretty heady stuff when new in 1963, but electrical dinosaurs compared to GP38ACs!) while still using first-generation magnetic switchgear which I knew from the newest fifteen GP9s.