CPR Class R3b decapod No. 5760

Image credit: Jim Hope

CPR Class R3b decapod No. 5760 sitting on a shop track in front of the Penticton roundhouse.

These locomotives first arrived on the Kettle Valley Railway early in 1939 and were restricted to pusher engine service out of Penticton. Westbound, the push was 25 miles to Kirton; eastbound, the push was 27 miles to Chute Lake. It was not until 1952, when an extensive line-upgrading program had been carried out, that the 5700 series locomotives regularly began to stray beyond the Penticton pusher jobs.

In the last year of steam operations on the Kettle Valley (1952-1953), the 5700s began to appear in freight and work train service on the Coquihalla, Princeton and Carmi Subdivisions.

Date: April 7th, 1943.