Book Review: Canadian Pacific Diesel Locomotives

I came across the book Canadian Pacific Diesel Locomotives at the library while looking for something to read on my August vacation. This hardcover book was written by Murray W. Dean and David B. Hanna and was published by Railfare in 1981.

This is an extraordinary book. It covers the history of Canadian Pacific Railway's diesel locomotives from their first diesel, CP 7000, through to the most modern locomotives at the time of writing, including MLW M-630s and M-636s and GM's GP38ACs. At the time of writing the SD40-2 was the king of the fleet.

The book goes into tremendous detail on the units, their strengths and weaknesses, where they were assigned, among many other interesting details. I think where this book really shines is the insight into CP's purchasing decisions. Murray Dean was uniquely placed in CP's Mechanical and Research departments to witness these debates and decisions, and his knowledge is shared in this book.

Illustrations are sprinkled throughout the book and are all in black and white. The photo quality is average, but this is not a picture book and the image quality does not detract from the book.

This book is available from Amazon and other used book sellers, but the price is quite high.

My only criticism of this book is that there isn't an update available!