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Caption: It has been a long time so I do not recall exactly where the Strathcona Restoration facility was. South Edmonton along Hwy 2 I think it was back then. However, I did stop and grab a photo of an old steam engine coupled up to Intercolonial baggage car #236, which is what caught my attention in the first place. In 1970 this steam engine went to the Alberta Railroad Museum in North Edmonton. Eventually it was then sold. After many years, in 1998 the old CP 0-8-0 steam came to rest down near the ghost town of Sandon, BC; I gather on the outskirts of Kaslo; where it is on permanent historical display and kept in reasonable condition (non-operational, of course). The steam engine was built in 1908 by MLW as 2-8-0 #1737 but went thru a rebuild @1928 as an 0-8-0. Interesting it cost new $18,422 CDN back in 1908 and now $250,000 has been put into it for restoration. Great comparison of how the dollar has changed over the years.
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This is at what is now the End of Steel park in Old Strathcona, immediately south of the river valley on the east side of 103 St. Today there is only a CP caboose and a bit of track there, but at the time there were a bunch of passenger cars there. The baggage car (ex-Intercolonial 736, from the CN museum train) and CP 6947 were on loan from the Alberta Pioneer Railway Association, which operates the Alberta Railway Museum.
6947 had been sold by CP to a coal mine in Beinfait, SK, and was used into the 1960s. She was acquired by the APRA in 1970 and moved to Edmonton in 1972 on her own wheels, after the APRA had done some considerable work to make her roadworthy:
http://www.apraarchives.net/collection/index.php/Detail/objects/17392
The APRA was intially located at the old Cromdale streetcar barn (now demolished), along what is now the Edmonton LRT line between Stadium and Coliseum stations. The APRA moved to the current Alberta Railway Museum site in 1976.
As you mentioned the APRA later sold 6947 to her current owner in Sandon, and 736 is now at the Cranbrook Railway Museum.
This information is very much appreciated. Thank you so much for taking the time out to write.
In 1975, when I bought my first camera, a friend and I went to this location so he could teach me how to use the old SP1000. This really brigs back memories. Thanks!
It never ceases to amaze me how, no matter where I have been, someone on this group has been there before me.
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