Canadian Pacific Selkirk 5931 Restored in Calgary

Published: October 30, 2026

CALGARY, Alta. — Heritage Park has put Canadian Pacific 2-10-4 No. 5931 back in front of the gate with new paint. The park unveiled the finished cosmetic work on Tuesday, October 27. No. 5931 is one of two Selkirks still in existence. It remains a display engine, at the park entrance along 14th Street S.W.

Canadian Pacific 2-10-4 5931 at the Palliser Hotel in Calgary

Canadian Pacific 2-10-4 'Selkirk' #5931 is seen here outside the Palliser Hotel in Calgary, Alberta, circa 1955. Photographer unknown.

Donors and the City of Calgary raised $67,000 for the job. The park had expected about three weeks. Once the old paint came off, the corrosion was worse than the surface had shown, and the work ran about two and a half months. The locomotive has stood at Heritage Park since 1981.

The last of the Selkirks

Montreal Locomotive Works built 5931 in 1949. It is class T1c, one of the last six Selkirks, and one of 36 the Canadian Pacific took between 1929 and 1949. The name belongs to the Selkirk Mountains. The engines worked both freight and passenger trains over that range, between Calgary and Revelstoke. The railroad retired 5931 in 1959.

Calgary then knew the engine under the wrong number. It stood at Mewata Park lettered 5934. The real 5934 was the engine the railway had meant to give the city, and it was scrapped before the presentation. After the move to Heritage Park in 1981, the locomotive took its own number back. The other survivor is No. 5935, at the Canadian Railway Museum in Saint-Constant, Quebec.

The October 27 ceremony was a ribbon cutting for a locomotive people already use as a landmark on 14th Street. The finished paint keeps that landmark at the gate.

Sources

Calgary Herald, October 27, 2026, Devon Dekuyper. Unveiling that morning at the park entrance on 14th Street S.W. Built in Montreal in 1949. Displayed at Mewata Park as No. 5934. Moved to Heritage Park in 1981. About three weeks planned. About two and a half months once corrosion showed under the paint.
Railfan & Railroad, October 29, 2026, Nick Stewart. Cosmetic restoration. $67,000 from donors and the City of Calgary. Class T1c, one of the last six of 36 Selkirks built 1929–1949. Retired 1959. The original 5934 was scrapped before it could be presented, so 5931 carried that number at Mewata and took its own number back at Heritage Park. Sister 5935 is at the Canadian Railway Museum, Saint-Constant, Quebec.

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Canadian Pacific Selkirk 5931 Restored in Calgary

The last of the Selkirks

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Sources