They were all built as oil burners and that was a good thing because their fireboxes were very large. Had they been coal burners, much larger tenders would have been required thus increasing the total weight to nearly four hundred tons at a time when total weight had to be kept down. As built, the tenders held twelve thousand gallons of water and over four thousand gallons of fuel oil. They had to be equipped with two pair of six wheel trucks because the total tender weight was one hundred and forty eight tons.

Ten more of these successful mountain climbers were built in Nov. and Dec. of 1939, again by Montreal Locomotive and were classed as 'T 1b's'. They were numbered from 5920 to 5929 and were twenty tons lighter but carried 285 lb. Steam pressure as compared to 275 lbs. for the earlier models. These later 'T 1's' were semi streamlined and were painted with tuscan red panels along the running boards and on the tender sides with gold leaf border trim. Six more 'T 1c's', the last standard gauge steam locomotives built in Canada for a Canadian railroad, were turned out of the Montreal shop in 1949. They were the same as the earlier 'T 1b's' except that they were equipped with two large Westinghouse air compressors instead of the single air pumps that all of the earlier Selkirks had. These last 2-10-4's were taken out of service in 1959 (after only ten years service) and all but two were scraped. The 5935 is preserved in Delson, Quebec while the 5931 (numbered 5934) is in Calgary's Heritage Park. I think that it is sad that none of the earlier 'T1a's' were preserved because of their heavier looking, non streamlined appearance. Numbers 5900 to 5919 were better examples of what heavy mountain steam power should look like.

With the coming of the road diesels to operate between Calgary and Revelstoke in the early 1950's the Selkirks were assigned to work the Brooks and Maple Creek subdivisions between Calgary and Swift Current, Saskatchewan. They were also used to haul freight trains north of their new Alyth terminal as far as Edmonton. I had several spare trips running these giants on the Red Deer branch and I fired them for many a mile on the Laggan and Brooks Subdivisions to and from Field and Medicine Hat. I was qualified to run both steam and diesel by this time, having passed the necessary examinations in 1948, so most of the Engineers that I worked with didn't hesitate to trade off, (let the fireman run the engine while they did the firing, especially as an oil burner wasn't too hard to fire). How else was a young fellow like myself going to get the necessary experience that he would require in the years ahead.

My first trip firing a 5900 was early in 1943 while working as a hostler at the roundhouse, (moving locomotives into and out of the shops), when it was discovered that the fireman for No. 3, a passenger train, hadn't showed up and the 'T 1b' was due off the shop track. The Engineer, a fellow by the name of Otto Flegal, asked the foreman to let me fire the job to Field and return and Mr. Watson, the shop boss had to give his OK in order not to have a first class train badly delayed.

I told Mr. Flegal that I hadn't had much experience, (none at all, actually), firing those large 5900's and he just told me that I would know all I needed by the time that fast passenger train reached the western outskirts of Calgary. Otto Flegal sure did me a great favor that morning. He showed me how to have confidence in myself, because (as he told me afterwards), he knew that I was capable of firing that locomotive as long as I was given a fair chance.

A few years afterwards while firing passenger on a trip to Field for a spare engineer named Archie Whitlock, I got my first chance to run a 5900 locomotive down the 'Big Hill'. Whitlock got off his seat near the Great Divide at the top of Field Hill and didn't ask but told me to take over and handle the train down to Field. My protesting was to no avail for he said that he was sure that I was capable of handling that passenger train safely down that 2 ½ % grade. He had more guts than I had at that time.

So away we went---a running brake test was required while going through Hector past Lake Wapta where the train crews set up retainers on the fly, (without stopping ) then it was over the edge and onto that steep eleven mile down hill run. The air brakes had to be cycled on and off all the way down while the retainers held the speed down long enough for the brake pipe to be recharged before the air had to be re-applied all the while keeping the speed below 20 and above 15 miles per hour. It was down through the blue cut, past Partridge siding, through the top Spiral tunnel, past the clear signal at Yoho where there was a short train in the siding, whistle for the old level highway crossing then around the long left hand curve and across the Kicking Horse river on a high steel bridge and into the lower Spiral tunnel.

Bursting out into the daylight, three quarters of a mile further down, we crossed the Kicking Horse a second time. There was no train in Cathedral siding as we rolled past with clear signals at both ends then through the next short tunnel and by the old Monarch mine on the side of Mount Stephen. Then it was under a snow shed and through the last short tunnel and another snow shed. It was now only a few miles before we would arrive at our crew change off point at Field and, wonder of wonders, we made it in one piece with a perfect stop (if I do say so myself ) in front of station just past Mount Stephen House. That stop had to be good because looking out of the crews' hostel Mount Stephen House were at least twenty of my fellow firemen, engineers, trainmen and conductors, who would certainly give Whitlock a very bad time if that stop hadn't been a good smooth one at the proper place. Archie wouldn't have let me forget that I had let him down. He said that I had done a fine job of bringing that passenger train down from Stephen and when I said that it was my first time he wouldn't believe me, but it was true. I gained a lot of self confidence that day too.