Brian Schuff and I paid our respects to two battered veterans in Medicine Hat recently. These two EMD FP7A locomotives are on display at the Riverside Veterans Memorial Park.
1418 was built in January 1952 as CP 4060, and became CP 1418 in 1955. 1424 started life as CP 4068 in August 1952, and was eventually renumbered to CP 1424 in 1965.
Both units were sold to VIA Rail in September 1978, retaining their last numbers, and they were retired in 1985 after 30+ years of service each.
A plaque on site notes that they were presented to the city by Canadian Pacific on July 6, 1985.
These units are not in great shape. All of the windows are covered to prevent vandalism, and they are liberally coated with graffiti. In the photo below, I was careful to put my giant head in front of one of the scrawls on the nose of 1424.
The park is near the Canadian Pacific yard. While we were photographing the “stuffed and mounted” units, active locomotives CP 5988 and 3082 pulled up with a ballast train.
We didn’t have a great photo angle, but these SD40-2s are getting quite rare. This one still has a multimark!
I’m glad that we stopped to see these units. I’ve never seen them before, and it was a good opportunity to stretch our legs during our long Winnipeg – Calgary drive.
