Comments on: …I THINK I can … I – THINK – I – can …..I – T H I N K – I – can ….. …. I – T H I N K – I – c a n…. …..ex CPR class D10 #1057 digs into the grade … exhaust stack talk tempo slows noticeably… at every power stroke the front of the locomotive torqued left, torqued right, torqued left … forward progression slows to a walking pace … then triumphantly… and single handedly … tops the Don Branch grade…. … the steepest mainline grade in Canada (so I am told)…. …regular helper territory…. …credit Hogger Frank Bunker to coax every ounce of steam produced by 1057′s boiler (and his able fireman too!) and apply that power effectively to crest the grade with the Ontario Rail train: all five ( six ? ) heavy weight passenger cars ( > 80 tons each) …. …..that Sunday morning the observing CPR retirees: “just like the old days”….. ….words cannot describe seeing hearing feeling that performance ! June 29, 1976 at the top of the Don Branch grade, CP Rail Belleville subdivision mile 206; the box cars are adjacent to the CP Rail North Toronto subdivision; a pre-SLR Kodachrome at Leaside by S.Danko. Today ex CPR class D10h #1057 (MLW December 1912 ) resides unserviceable at Tottenham, Ontario. Postscript: the last steam on the Don Branch track was June 14, 2003 – CPR 2816 – and a RailPix contributor stated that the final train to use the Don Branch was one of the CPR Holiday (Christmas) train (2003?) …. BCR 2860 also used the Don Branch: at Cherry Street post postscript: I know some of you out there witnessed and photographed (with SLR’s) 1057′s June 29 1976 performance….let’s see some of your Kodachrome’s! Post post postscript: in the seventies another ex CPR steamer tackled the Don Branch grade….can you identify the locomotive?

By: Eric May

Eric May — Mon, 25 Nov 2013 02:10:27 +0000

Thanks for sharing this. Frank Bunker went on to run #136 at the South Simcoe Railway in the early 90′s