Caption: Canadian Pacific RSD17 8921, the "Empress of Agincourt", works her usual assignment hauling a large transfer freight, stretching down to Bathurst Street bridge, through the Parkdale area at Strachan Avenue grade crossing. The train has just come down CP's Don Branch from Leaside, passed through the Toronto Terminals Railway corridor and Union Station downtown, and is approaching CP's Parkdale Yard. After its Parkdale visit, it will proceed to West Toronto/Lambton yards and then back to Agincourt Yard.

CP 8921 was originally built by Montreal Locomotive Works in 1957 as their only RSD17 model (essentially a Canadian version of Alco's RSD15). After demonstrating on CP, CN, and PGE, CP purchased demonstrator unit and numbered it after its series of FM/CLC Train Masters (8900-8920). An oddball on the roster, it found a home in the Toronto area handling transfer duties between CP's freight yards around the city, a task well-suited to the 2400 horsepower 6-axle unit. At the time of this photo, 8921's dirty and faded maroon and grey block lettering paint wasn't long for this world, and she would soon head to Montreal and emerge from Angus Shops in December 1973 sporting fresh action red and multimark paint (and return back to Toronto in time for the new year). Chop-nosed in 1988, 8921 lasted into the mid-90's but was retired due to cracks in her truck frames, and was donated to the Elgin County Railway Museum in 1997.

The old Canadian Patent Scaffolding Company building, off Ordnance Street in the industrial Liberty Village/Parkdale area of Toronto, would survive until 2014/15-ish when gentrification saw it torn down for condos. Strachan Avenue itself would be grade-separated by Metrolinx/GO Transit in the early 2010's.

Original photographer unknown, Dan Dell'Unto collection slide.