Heritage Park unveils restored Selkirk steam locomotive after two-and-a-half-month rebuild

Heritage Park unveiled its newly restored Selkirk No. 5931 steam locomotive on Tuesday morning. The engine, nicknamed the "King of the Rockies," is on display along 14th Street S.W. at the park entrance. It is 77 years old. Brian Lanier, the park's interim CEO, said it "looks pretty good for a 77-year-old."

Selkirk engines were among the last steam locomotives used in Western Canada before diesel and electric power replaced them. Of the 36 built, two still exist. "It was one of 36 (Selkirk) engines that were built, and there's only two of them in existence right now . . . so it really is a big deal," Lanier said.

The locomotive was moved to Heritage Park in 1981, after more than two decades on display at Mewata Park. Curators discovered a numbering error when it arrived, which they corrected from 5939 to 5931.

The restoration was funded by the City of Calgary and the park, with a large portion coming from individual donors. One of them, David Dunsmore, a former Canadian Pacific rail traffic controller, emailed the park asking for the engine to be restored after noticing it had declined. "Every time I saw it, it kind of broke my heart that such a significant piece of Canadian history was being allowed to basically rust into the ground," Dunsmore said. He said his grandfather had photos of Selkirks like this one from the 1940s. "It really looks better than I've seen it in my memory," he said.

Mike Lindsay, chair of the Heritage Park board, said the engine was important to freight moving between Calgary and Revelstoke during a critical period for growing Western Canada. "People care about the history, they care about Calgary, and this is a great example of that," he said.

The project was expected to take about three weeks. It took two and a half months, because rust and corrosion were worse than expected once the old paint was stripped. Eugene Toryanyk, general manager of Envirotech Remediation and Abatement Inc., the restoration contractor, said the condition was "a lot worse" than it looked from the ground. "There were holes rusted through, a lot of loss of the structure itself," he said. David Paul, Heritage Park's senior curator, said the engine had been repainted several times, with at least five layers of paint found during the work. The last major restoration was about 25 years ago.