Canadian Pacific Steam Locomotives: History, Roster & Photos

Published: September 16, 2026

Canadian Pacific acquired 3,257 steam locomotives between 1881 and 1949. Five hundred two of them were D10 Ten-Wheelers. The rest of the photograph memory is G3 Pacifics on dual service, H1 Hudsons with crowns on the skirts, and T1 Selkirk 2-10-4s west of Calgary. George H. Drury, in Guide to North American Steam Locomotives, is the book for how that fleet sat on one roster.

Henry H. Vaughan made the superheater standard. Henry Blaine Bowen, chief of motive power 1928–49, designed the Hudsons and turned a 2-8-4 sketch into the Selkirk. Last new steam was T1c Selkirk 5935, Montreal, 1949. The last steam-hauled train was a Canadian Railroad Historical Association extra on November 6, 1960, 4-4-0 29, Montreal to St. Lin and back.

Canadian Pacific 4-6-2 2389 working freight at Portage la Prairie Manitoba in the 1950s

Canadian Pacific 4-6-2 #2389, a G3 assigned to dual service, working freight at Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, during the 1950s. Paul Meyer photo. American-Rails.com collection.

On this page: At a glance · Superheaters and the D10 · Mikados, Decapods, Selkirks · Pacifics, Hudsons, Jubilees · Articulateds, tanks, 8000 · November 6, 1960 · All-time roster (built since 1900)

At a glance

Item	Detail
Railroad	Canadian Pacific Railway. Mark CP
Steam acquired (1881–1949)	3,257 (Drury)
This roster	Classes built since 1900, after Drury, pages 94–97. Pre-1900 in the narrative
D10 Ten-Wheelers	502, 1905–13. 63-inch drivers. Angus, Montreal, CLC, Richmond, Schenectady
Pacifics	G1 39 and G2 166 (1906–14); G3 173 and G4 18 after the war; G5 102 (1944–48)
Hudsons	65. Forty-five streamlined as Royal Hudsons after 2850’s 1939 royal tour
Selkirk 2-10-4s	T1a 20 (1929); T1b 10 (1938, semi-streamlined); T1c 6 (1949). Plus experimental 8000
Last new steam	T1c 5930–5935, Montreal, 1949. Last standard-gauge steam built in Canada for a Canadian railway
Last steam train	November 6, 1960, CRHA extra, 4-4-0 29, Montreal–St. Lin
Chiefs of motive power	Henry H. Vaughan (from 1904/1910). Henry Blaine Bowen, 1928–49
Shops	Angus, Montreal (named 1902 for Richard B. Angus). Also MLW, CLC Kingston

Class table follows Drury, Guide to North American Steam Locomotives (revised edition), pages 94–97. Information compiled September 16, 2026.

Compounds, superheaters, and 502 Ten-Wheelers

Canadian Pacific entered the twentieth century with a virtual monopoly on railroading in Canada west of North Bay: Calgary–Vancouver, Winnipeg, Regina, Calgary–Edmonton, the Crowsnest from Dunmore, the North Portal stem from the U.S. border. Eastern Canada was already in place. Toronto–Sudbury, the Quebec Central, and the Dominion Atlantic were still to come. Expansion meant more locomotives. The hot item at the turn of the century was the compound. CP was definitely pro-compound: cross-compounds and Vauclain compounds on several wheel arrangements.

In 1901 and 1903 the railroad installed Schmidt superheaters in two Ten-Wheelers—the first such application outside Prussia. Superheating avoided much of the complexity of the compound. CP bought its last compounds, a group of 2-8-0s, in 1903. In February 1904 Henry H. Vaughan became superintendent of motive power for lines east of Winnipeg; by 1910 he was vice-president in charge of motive power for the whole railroad. He developed his own superheater. In 1904 the road purchased 41 Consolidations fitted with Schmidt and Cole superheaters; in 1905 ten 4-6-0s carried the Vaughan-Horsey superheater. Coal consumption fell. The compounds, even the new ones, were soon rebuilt to superheated simples.

The versatile engine that came out of that work was class D10, a 4-6-0 with 63-inch drivers and 21-by-28 or 22-by-28-inch cylinders. CP acquired 502 of them between 1905 and 1913 from Montreal, Canadian Locomotive Company, Richmond, Schenectady, and its own Angus Shops. Angus had been started in 1902 and named for Richard B. Angus, one of the original directors. A number of D10s were still at work as late as 1960. Don Wood photographed 1004 on a freight at Worcester, Ontario, in July 1957—the engine Drury uses to stand for the class.

World War I stopped new designs. The shops went to war work. Vaughan was forced out. In 1921 Angus all but ceased building new steam so the floor could repair what was already on the property. Henry Blaine Bowen took motive power in 1928 and held it through 1949. The Hudsons are his.

Mikados, Decapods, and the Selkirk

In 1909 CP introduced a 220,000-pound 2-8-0, then the heaviest freight engine in Canada. While it was still buying those machines it developed a 2-8-2 of the same rating with a larger firebox. During the war it designed a bigger Mikado and a 2-10-2. Construction began right after the Armistice: 105 P2 2-8-2s and 15 Santa Fes. One of Bowen’s first jobs was a 2-8-4 based on the P2. During the design it became a 2-10-4 using the boiler of the 4-8-4 his predecessor had laid down. Montreal built twenty in 1929 for the Rockies west of Calgary. Ten more arrived in 1938, semi-streamlined for passenger work between Calgary and Revelstoke. The name Selkirk was applied then. The last six came in 1949, months before CP dieselized its Vermont lines. They were the last standard-gauge steam built in Canada for a Canadian railway.

East of the Rockies the answer was more Mikados: 69 P2s from 1940 to 1948, and 65 Consolidations rebuilt to P1n 2-8-2s between 1946 and 1949. The P2 in the Montreal photograph on the company page, 5145, is an Angus engine of 1926.

Pacifics, Hudsons, Jubilees

Between 1906 and 1914 CP received 39 class G1 and 166 class G2 Pacifics, nearly identical except for driver size: 75 inches on the G1, 70 on the G2. In 1914 Angus built two 4-8-2s, the first Mountains in Canada, as passenger trains got heavier. After the war the railroad went back to Pacifics: G3 and G4, almost the G1 and G2 over again, still split by driver diameter. G3 2389, the engine on this page, is dual-service power—a freight at Portage la Prairie in the 1950s, the same class that could take varnish. Between 1938 and 1948 CP bought 122 more G3s, all but the last ten from Canadian Locomotive Company, because the G1s and G2s were wearing out. In 1944 Angus turned out two G5s, a modernized G2, as prototypes for 100 more from Montreal and CLC in 1945–48. The Pacific type page is the wheel arrangement; this roster is CP’s.

In 1929 Angus built a pair of 4-8-4s, 3100 and 3101, class K1a. Charles H. Temple designed them and then retired; Bowen took over. They were too heavy for much of the system and spent most of their careers on Montreal–Toronto night trains. CP settled on the Hudson instead. The first ten of Bowen’s 4-6-4s came from Montreal in late 1929, ten more a year later: 75-inch drivers, 22-by-30 cylinders, 360,000 pounds, 194,000 on the drivers. CP could put about as much locomotive on three axles as Canadian National put on four in the U-2 Confederation.

Lightweight streamliners in 1934 were not ignored. CP’s answer was four-car trains for Montreal–Quebec, Toronto–Detroit, and Calgary–Edmonton. Montreal outshopped five F2a 4-4-4s in 1936 to pull them. The type was named Jubilee, fiftieth anniversary of the transcontinental. Eighty-inch drivers; the cars were connected to the forward drivers, Milwaukee Hiawatha Atlantic fashion. In 1937–38 came twenty F1a Jubilees with 75-inch drivers and the main rod on the rear drivers. The fast locals they were meant for never appeared. They took secondary passenger trains instead.

CP rostered the second-largest Hudson fleet on the continent, 65 engines, 45 of them streamlined. Thirty more Hudsons in 1937 were mechanically the 1929–30 engines with Jubilee-style streamlining, assigned Toronto–Fort William (811 miles) and Winnipeg–Calgary (832 miles). Ten more followed in 1938. When 2850, first of that newest group, was assigned to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth’s 1939 Canadian tour, it wore royal crowns on the skirting above the cylinders. It went to the New York World’s Fair and kept the crowns on Fort William–Winnipeg. The crowns went onto all the streamlined 4-6-4s. They became Royal Hudsons. Five oil-burning Hudsons, the last of the type, came in 1940 for Revelstoke–Vancouver. The Hudson type is the wheel arrangement. 2816, an H1b later restored for excursion work, has no separate page here.

Articulateds, tank engines, and 8000

In 1909 and 1911 CP bought the only articulateds built in Canada for domestic service: six 0-6-6-0s for helpers in the Rockies and Selkirks. The first five were compounds. The sixth was one of the first two simple articulateds in the world—a Pennsylvania 2-8-8-2 was under construction at the same time. The front engine was on backward, cylinders to the rear, just ahead of the rear engine’s cylinders. They were converted to 2-10-0s in 1917, class R2, 5750–5755.

In 1910 Angus built three 4-6-4Ts for Montreal suburban service; in 1912, two 0-6-4Ts for passenger-terminal switching at Montreal and Toronto. Over the next two years the shops turned out new 0-8-0s—most of the road’s eight-wheel switchers had been rebuilt from Consolidations—and a trio of 0-10-0s.

After the first Selkirks, Angus built an experimental 2-10-4 with a multi-pressure boiler. Number 8000, class T4a, emerged in May 1931. Two conventional cylinders at 250 psi drove the third axle; a third cylinder between the frames at 850 psi drove the second. A closed 1,600-pound circuit transferred heat inside the boiler. CP had already had its fling with compounds; this was a high-pressure simple. It was retired in 1936 and scrapped in 1940.

Dieselization, November 6, 1960

CP began buying diesel switchers in the 1930s. In 1949 it dieselized two districts: the Esquimalt & Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, and Montreal–Wells River, Vermont. Several other districts followed. In 1953 the policy shifted to dieselization by train run. By the late 1950s steam was mostly Manitoba and Quebec. In 1959 only a few Montreal locals were still behind steam. Engines were kept for standby until 1962. A few supplied steam to the Montreal passenger-car yard while the stationary boilers were down in the winter of 1960–61. The last steam-hauled train was the CRHA extra on November 6, 1960. Diesels are the CP diesel roster.

All-time roster (built since 1900)

Drury’s grid is classes built from 1900 on. Quantities are his. Retirement years are the span he prints. Notes are his rebuild and reclass lines. Pre-1900 4-4-0s and early Ten-Wheelers that never received a post-1900 class in this table are the opening count of 3,257, not a second list. Builder “CP” is Angus Shops unless a row says otherwise.

0-6-0, 0-6-4T, 0-8-0, 0-10-0, 0-6-6-0

Type	Class	Numbers	Qty	Builder / years	Retired	Notes
0-6-0	U2e	6045–6050	6	CP, 1904	1935
0-6-0	U2t	6058–6062	5	CP, 1900, 1901–04	1930–1940
0-6-0	U3a	6101–6130	30	Schenectady, 1902	1933
0-6-0	U3b	6140–6142	3	CP, 1905–10	1930–1939
0-6-0	U3c	6143–6208	66	CP, 1911–12	1935–1955
0-6-0	U3d	6209–6259	51	CP, 1912–13	1950–1958
0-6-0	U3e	6260–6304	45	CP, 1912–13	1956–1957
0-6-4T	T3a	5996, 5997	2	CP, 1904, 1912	1946	Passenger-terminal switchers, Montreal and Toronto
0-8-0	V5a	6400–6409	10	Canada Foundry, 1906–11	1937–1946
0-8-0	V2c	6876	1	CP, 1913	1949–1966
0-8-0	V3a	6900–6903	4	CP, 1913	1943–1964
0-8-0	V3c	6924–6953	30	CP, MLW, 1907–10	1943–1964
0-8-0	V4a	6960–6968	9	CP, 1930–31	1957–1965
0-10-0	W1a	6950–6952	3	CP, 1914	1954–1957
0-6-6-0	R1	5750–5755	6	CP, 1909–11	1916–1917	Rebuilt to 2-10-0s 5750–5755. Only articulateds built in Canada for domestic service

2-8-0, 2-8-2, 2-10-0, 2-10-2, 2-10-4

Type	Class	Numbers	Qty	Builder / years	Retired	Notes
2-8-0	M1e	3232–3245	14	CLC, 1899–1900	1921–1941
2-8-0	M2a	3250–3258	9	CP, 1900–01	1928–1945
2-8-0	M2b	3259	1	CP, 1901	1930
2-8-0	M2c	3260–3271	12	Richmond, 1900	1923–1946
2-8-0	M2d	3272–3281	10	CLC, 1900	1930–1946
2-8-0	M2e	3282–3295	14	CLC, 1901–03	1928–1937
2-8-0	M2f	3296–3305	10	Canada Foundry, 1904–05	1922–1926
2-8-0	M2g	3305–3391	42	Schenectady, 1901–02	1930–1960
2-8-0	M4a–h	3400–3565	166	Montreal, CLC, Schenectady, CP, Baldwin, 1904–10	1935–1961
2-8-0	N2	3600–3760	161	Montreal, CLC, Canada Foundry, CP, 1909–14	1954–1963	Built as N3, 3800–3960. Photo in Drury: 3718
2-8-0	N4	3952–3956	5	Montreal, CLC, 1913–21	1957–1958	Ex-Algoma Eastern 52–56
2-8-2	P1a	5000–5019	20	CP, 1912	1955–1965	To P1d, 5100–5119, 1928–38
2-8-2	P1b	5020–5094	65	MLW, 1913	1957–1964	To P1e, 5120–5184, 1928–38
2-8-2	P1n	5200–5264	65	Montreal, CLC, Canada Foundry, 1910–14; rebuilt 1946–49	1957–1964	Rebuilt from Consolidations
2-8-2	P2	5300–5473	174	CP, MLW, CLC, 1919–48	1956–1965	Includes 105 postwar-design engines right after World War I and 69 more 1940–48. 5145 is Angus, 1926
2-10-0	R2	5750–5755	6	CP, 1916–17	1956–1960	Ex-0-6-6-0
2-10-0	R3	5756–5790	35	CP, 1917–19	1952–1965
2-10-2	S2a	5800–5814	15	Montreal, 1919–20	1954–1959
2-10-4	T1a	5900–5919	20	Montreal, 1929	1956	Selkirk; Rockies west of Calgary
2-10-4	T1b	5920–5929	10	Montreal, 1938	1957	Semi-streamlined; Calgary–Revelstoke passenger
2-10-4	T1c	5930–5935	6	Montreal, 1949	1959	Last new CP steam. 5931 and 5935 preserved
2-10-4	T4a	8000	1	CP, 1931	1940	Multi-pressure experimental; retired 1936, scrapped 1940

4-4-4, 4-6-0, 4-6-2, 4-6-4, 4-6-4T, 4-8-2, 4-8-4, Shay

Type	Class	Numbers	Qty	Builder / years	Retired	Notes
4-4-4	F1a	2910–2929	20	CLC, 1937–38	1957–1961	Jubilee; 75-inch drivers; secondary passenger
4-4-4	F2a	3000–3004	5	Montreal, 1936	1957–1958	Jubilee; 80-inch drivers; four-car streamliners
4-6-0	D4g	417–492	76	CP, Montreal, 1912–15	1939–1966
4-6-0	D6	500–559	60	Schenectady, North British, Sächsische Maschinenbau A.G., 1902–04	1930–1955
4-6-0	D9c	560–597	28	Schenectady, 1903	1939–1955
4-6-0	D10	600–1111	502	Richmond, Montreal, CLC, CP, Schenectady, 1905–13	1938–1956	Standard Ten-Wheeler. Some lasted to 1960. Drury photo: 1004 at Worcester, Ont., July 1957
4-6-2	G1	2200–2238	39	CP, Montreal, 1906–14	1940–1961	75-inch drivers
4-6-2	G2	2300–2465	166	CP, Montreal, Schenectady, 1906–14	1940–1961	70-inch drivers
4-6-2	G3	2310–2472	173	CP, MLW, CLC, 1919–48	1941–1966	Dual service. Photo: #2389 at Portage la Prairie
4-6-2	G4	2700–2717	18	CP, 1919–21	1954–1965
4-6-2	G5	1200–1301	102	CP, MLW, CLC, 1944–48	1959–1964	Modernized G2; two Angus prototypes 1944, then 100 from MLW and CLC
4-6-4T	T2a	5991–5993	3	CP, 1910, 1912	1935	Montreal suburban
4-6-4	H1a	2800–2809	10	Montreal, 1929	1957–1959
4-6-4	H1b	2810–2819	10	Montreal, 1930	1957–1962	2816 later restored for excursion service
4-6-4	H1c	2820–2849	30	Montreal, 1937	1958–1966	Streamlined; Royal Hudson after 1939
4-6-4	H1d	2850–2859	10	Montreal, 1938	1958–1965	2850 on the 1939 royal train; crowns from that tour
4-6-4	H1e	2860–2864	5	Montreal, 1940	1957–1961	Oil burners, Revelstoke–Vancouver
4-8-2	T1b	2900, 2901	2	CP, 1914	1945, 1944	First Mountains in Canada. Class T1b in Drury’s table (not the Selkirk T1b)
4-8-4	K1a	3100, 3101	2	CP, 1928	1945, 1944	Temple design; too heavy for most of the system; Montreal–Toronto night trains
Shay	S1a, C	5901, 5903	2	Lima, 1900, 1903	1914, 1913	Numbers later reused on Selkirks

G2 and G3 number ranges overlap in Drury because CP reused the 2300s as G2s came off and G3s came on. The 4-8-4 type encyclopedia is the Northern/Confederation wheel arrangement; CP owned two of them. The 4-8-2 type is the Mountain; CP’s pair of 1914 engines is not the Selkirk T1b of 1938.

Sources

Drury, George H. Guide to North American Steam Locomotives. Revised edition. Waukesha: Kalmbach Books, 2015. Canadian Pacific, pages 94–97. Class table on this page; narrative on Vaughan, D10s, Bowen, Selkirks, Hudsons, Jubilees, 8000, and November 6, 1960
Lavallée, Omer. Canadian Pacific Steam Locomotives. Railfare, 1985. Class book Drury recommends
Canadian Pacific Historical Association / cprsteam.org. All-time count 3,257 since 1881
American-Rails.com: Canadian Pacific Railway; Canadian National steam; 4-6-2, 4-6-4, 4-8-2, and 4-8-4 type pages

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