My Father, George Yeats, was born in the north of England in 1880 and after leaving school at a young age went to work for the LNER railroad, in the city of Carlyle, starting as an engine cleaner. In 1907 both he and a friend emigrated to Canada where the CPR hired them as firemen at Kenora, Ontario. Dad stayed there for one year then transferred to Calgary where the railroad also needed firemen. Nearly forty years later he retired from the CPR as a locomotive engineer in 1945 at age sixty-five after over fifty years of railroading. He had three sons and a daughter also working for the CPR at the time of his retirement.

Dad was 41 years of age when C.R. Littlebury took the photograph of the 577 and the engine crew on the Alyth (Calgary) shop-track on Dec. 31st 1921. The crew consisted of my father, Fireman George W. Yeats, and engineer Jack Fay. The locomotive is on the incoming shop track and it looks as though Fay and Yeats have probably just arrived from Field B.C. with a passenger train. They had to bring their locomotive down to Alyth (Instead of leaving it at the passenger engine roundhouse which was located uptown near the Calgary station) because the 577 was an oil-burner and there was no fuel oil supply at the "West Shop" where all other passenger locomotives were serviced up until the late 1920's. I believe that the "West Shop" was dismantled about 1930 or very soon thereafter as all locomotives were then being serviced at the new enlarged Alyth shop.

This locomotive was built in 1903 by the American Locomotive Company in Schenectady, New York and at the time of building both the headlight and classification lights burned coal oil. In the picture, we can see that they have been converted to use electricity as indicated by the light wiring leading to them. A very unusual feature of the "D9 c's was the fact that the main valve cylinders were placed nearly in line with the locomotive's frame requiring a 45-degree slope down and out to the main cylinders. Perhaps this was because "Stephenson valve gear" (inside between the frames) was used but it was more likely because these locomotives were built as "compounds" originally. These "compound" engines each had one small and one larger main cylinder, and this arrangement was to make room for the one larger diameter cylinder.

In operating these compounds high-pressure steam was admitted first to the smaller cylinder then was exhausted into the large low-pressure cylinder thus saving fuel by using the steam twice. When starting a heavy train the engine could be "simpled" by admitting high-pressure steam to both cylinders then, as soon as the train was started, changing it back over to the compound system. The boiler didn't have the capacity to supply high-pressure steam to both cylinders. At a later date a steam-superheating system was installed in the boilers of these locomotives and then they were converted from compounds to simple engines. The compound system was designed to save fuel but it was later found that using the newer much improved lubricating oils and high temperature superheated steam was a far more fuel-efficient system.

I never worked on any of these "ten wheeler D9's" but made many a back breaking trip on the newer coal burning hand fired "D10" ten wheelers. For many years, up until the 1950's, a 500 series "D9" worked between Golden and Cranbrook on the Windermere Subdivision way freight. It was an oil burner like the 577 pictured. For a while one of these locomotives was also stationed in Field as a back up for the yard switcher. I recall that on one morning in 1946 when the eastbound express train number two had one or two extra cars, making the train too heavy for the regular 5900 Selkirk assigned to it, the "D9" 500 was added as a helper. There were none of the regular pusher locomotives available because all of the heaver "S2" 5800 class or "P2" 5300 class pushers were being held to assist freight trains or were already up on the Field hill. What a sight it was to see that small ten wheeler pulling that large Selkirk! The pusher engineer had that "D9" wide open when passing the old Mount Stephen House and the 5900 was just idling along at half throttle. That would soon change soon after the train reached the east switch for that was the point where the steep grade started on the infamous "Field Hill".

In 1947 when the reference book "Canadian Pacific Railway Diagrams and Data" was revised by the famous Omer Lavallee, the CPR had only a total of 16 "D9's" on the roster. The rest, including the 577 were wrecked or scraped. There were 17 "D6's" which were also numbered between 503 and 556. Alco in New York built the first nine of these in 1902. The next four were Scottish built and the last four were the only locomotives that the CPR ever had built in Germany. All of the "D6's" had narrow but deep fireboxes that fitted between the rear driving wheels and right down on the locomotive frame and, like the later "D4" ten wheelers, they probably didn't have air operated firebox doors without which they would have made them much harder to fire.

Lance Camp has shown me many photographs of some of the CPR's "D6's" and "D9's" taken by C.R. Littlebury, but because my father is in this one it is my favourite.