While 2022 came to an end, the steam team worked tirelessly to complete the federally mandated boiler inspection, so that the major running gear work could begin. Most of 2022 was spent performing the time consuming, heavy, dirty job of removing a mile-and-a-half of boiler tubes, flues, and superheater unit piping, so that boiler inspectors could gain access to the inside of the boiler barrel. The internal inspection went flawlessly, proving 2816 was well cared for during the operations of years past. Then the entire boiler and all its associated tubes and piping had to be completely reassembled.

With the boiler inspection complete, 2023 kicked off with lifting the engine – the first time a lift of this magnitude had been performed at Ogden since 1956. Fortunately for the steam team, the Ogden Heritage shop still has the original 250-ton overhead crane, used to lift the 2816.

“The crane was built in 1930, the same year 2816 was built. Like the 2816, it is overbuilt to last, and was designed to lift these heavy engines. It was still up for doing the job and is one of the last of its kind in operation” remarks Jonathan Morris, Manager Operating Practices - Steam, who is leading the project. The lift and its subsequent set down went flawlessly, thanks to dunnage acquired with the help of Chad Decoene, Director Car Reliability & Quality.

“January 12 was a historic day,” reflects Justin Tracy, Senior Manager Heritage Mechanical – Steam.

 “You worry about everything; making sure all things were done correctly, looking at it from every angle. After all, we only have one 2816.”

Throughout the restoration process, Jonathan and the team have built a close relationship with Chief Mechanical Officer Mike Manwiller at Heber Valley Railroad (HVRR) a tourist railroad based in Heber City, Utah. Mike was involved in CPKC’s previous steam operations and was familiar with the 2816 and is a treasured part of the steam community. The HVRR has a team of restoration experts with a roster of several steam locomotive preservation projects and a shop with specialized equipment to support their work. Many former members of 2816’s original crew descended on HVRR to help with the project as well, including CPKC’s original steam restoration manager in 2001 Bill Stetler. Jonathan made several trips to Utah to gather parts and to oversee the project. At the same time, work continued at Weir Machine Shop in Calgary, such as main crank pin replacement, sweating new steel “tires” onto all six wheels, which meant puzzling hundreds of components in the axles, hub liners and frame of the wheels that were exposed from the lift. The team was clocking one-hundred-hour work weeks.

May 2023 brought the big trip down to Utah. The team loaded the completely rebuilt driving boxes and completed oil conversion components into a U-Haul truck. Jonathan Morris, Manager Operating Practices - Steam and Krys Bialorucki, Heritage Locomotive Technician, made the long drive back to Calgary so that the huge undertaking of reassembly could begin.

The engine was back on its wheels in record time, under steam by June 18, and by June 29 it was running on the mainline - one of the more memorable days of the year: 2816 operated while a tornado touched down in the area. The violent storm brought down trees across the tracks, caused numerous outages, and gave the crew a steam bath in the cab, but the 2816 never missed a beat.

“Lightning was coming down all around us and the rain was coming down sideways. We were ok, but several other trains in the area were affected,” reflects Jonathan Morris, Manager Operating Practices - Steam.

“There was flash flooding around the city and we all couldn’t believe the severity of the storm. No matter how loud the storm was though, it didn’t drown out 2816’s rifle fire exhaust.”

As far as CPKC’s assets go, 2816 has proven its worth. It ran throughout the Great Depression, World War II and beyond, averaging at times up to 18,000 miles per month. In 30 years, it is estimated the locomotive ran over 3.5 million miles – far outrunning most diesel locomotives of the same age.

“These are very robust, overbuilt, heavy duty machines,” says Jonathan. “It would leave Winnipeg, running at 100 miles an hour. 850 miles later, it would arrive in Calgary where it would be turned, serviced, and sent east again. It would do this seven days a week.”

Steam engines evaporate 100 gallons of water each mile, and every reciprocating component weighs between 150 – 800 pounds – part of the reason they were phased out for more efficient and affordable diesel engines in the 1960s.

In the summer of 2023, the team faced the challenge of meeting an enormous number of regulatory requirements. One of the largest hurdles was the implementation of Positive Train Control (PTC) – the ability for the train to automatically stop on its own if needed.

CPKC is the first company to implement PTC as a “stand alone” system on a steam locomotive, allowing PTC to function without a trailing diesel locomotive. This meant, in the same way as a diesel engine, it had to be commissioned as a new class of locomotive: model H1B, built in 1930. The team created real life stopping targets, and the locomotive could only exceed the target by seven feet on either side. Not one target was overshot.

“It’s the most high-tech low-tech engine out there,” laughs Krys Bialorucki, Heritage Locomotive Specialist.

CPKC PTC experts Andrew Brant, Senior Manager Radio Engineering, Collin Corrigan, Locomotive Systems Technologist, and Randy Garnas, Assistant Director PTC Operations, were all critical to the PTC success.  

At one point, a North American tour in the summer of 2023 was being considered. When the tour was officially scheduled for April 2024, the first anniversary of CPKC’s combination, it bought the team nearly a year of extra breathing room. Nevertheless, no one wanted to clock out just yet and the crew found themselves in the shop the next morning.

“We kept our foot on the gas, because we had such great momentum that we didn’t want to lose,” says Jonathan Morris, Manager Operating Practices - Steam. “I am so incredibly proud of this dedicated team.”

Jordy Hunter, a long-time steam crew member who normally works as a Locomotive Engineer in Nelson, didn’t want to slow down either. “We had been given an opportunity to find out how we would work on the road as a team. We knew we worked well in the shop, but running this thing is a whole new ballgame” reflects Jordy. “It was a special moment for all of us to be back on the mainline running 2816.”

Throughout June to October 2023, the 2816 ran, including a flawless 1000 miles in four days. The purpose of these runs was to prove beyond a doubt that the rebuild had been successful, and to continue training the crew, running longer days at high speeds. This would mimic the operating conditions it will see on the road in 2024.

The testing brought rail fans out in droves, with crowds in the thousands lining the hills and slopes of our mainline, schoolyards of children were cheering as the Empress thundered past, and online groups and photography forums dedicated to catching a glimpse of the locomotive hard at work.

“Steam culture is no different than car culture and airplane culture,” says Justin Tracy, Senior Manager Heritage Mechanical – Steam. “You can call someone up on the opposite side of the continent with a steam question and they’ll always have time for you. The people you meet and deal with when dealing with steam engines, those relationships, they don’t go away.”

“I consider everyone I work with family,” says Krys Bialorucki, Heritage Locomotive Specialist. “I’ll have these memories for the rest of my life.”

By October 20, five months to the day when Jonathan and Krys returned from Heber with all the driving boxes and oil conversion parts, testing was complete.

Reaching into the inside of the locomotive is like reaching through time itself. A bind between decades, coordinates and generations, 2816 is a connection point that disregards skill, age and location and demands only passion. 

The team got to tap into the wisdom of generations of railroaders, reaching out to 80 and 90-year-old CP pensioners who knew the 2816 like an old friend – a symbol of their very best days in railroading, a homecoming of sorts.

Retired CP Master Mechanic George Doerr has been a significant part of the work on 2816. George hired on in Winnipeg in 1947 when steam was king and remembers 2816 like it was yesterday. He even provided a passport-sized Canadian Pacific notebook from 1961, Care of Journal Boxes & Contained Parts, to help the steam crew with a bearing refurbishment project on 2816’s tender.

When pensioners like George tell stories, there is a figurative line when they get to the 1960s, the switch from steam to diesel, when their recollections lose a bit of their color. Some pensioners had the 2816 in their time books, and despite the decades since they pulled the throttle, they still knew dimensions distances and other critical information to the inch. For those who worked the rails midcentury, to work on the railroad means to work with steam.

“We’re doing this work with what they’ve passed onto us,” reflects Jonathan Morris, Manager Operating Practices - Steam, who has worked on the railway since he was a teenager, and whose memories involve years spent with retired CP steam locomotive men, most whom have passed on now. “There’s nothing else that brings generations together like this; these things are timeless.”

Krys Bialorucki, Heritage Locomotive Specialist,  who is 35, finds moments of wonder in his day-to-day work: the satisfaction of seeing hard work come to fruition, a morning when the sunlight through the shop window hits the steel just right.

The 2816 restoration continues to captivate. In an increasingly digital age, where speed, innovation and affordability overtake delayed gratification, the 2816 represents hope – an antithesis to the monotonous search for the next big thing and a reminder of the joy of resurrecting a job done well. For the steam team and their fans, it embodies the delight of stumbling across a passion and the surprise of finding that generations of others are, and have always been, waiting for you there, too.