It was assumed that the railway would cross the rich Fertile Belt of the North Saskatchewan Valley and cross the Rocky Mountains through the Yellowhead Pass, a route made by Sir Sandford Fleming on the basis of a decade of work. However, the RPC quickly rejected this plan in favour of a more southern route on the Dry Palliser Triangle in Saskatchewan and through the Kicking Horse Pass and Field Hill to rocky Mountain Trench. This route was more direct and closer to the Canada-U.S. border, making it easier for the RPC to prevent U.S. railways from entering the Canadian market. But this line also had some drawbacks. The RPC built hundreds of its own locomotives in its stores in Montreal, first in the “New Shops,” as DeLorimer stores were commonly known, and in the massive Angus stores they replaced in 1904. Some of the CPR`s best-known locomotives were the 4-6-4 Hudsons. First built in 1929, they began a new era of modern locomotives with capabilities that changed the way transcontinental passenger trains flowed, eliminating frequent changes along the route.

What was once 24 engine changes in 1886, all 4-4-0s except two of 2-8-0 in the mountains, for 4,640 kilometers (2883 miles) between Montreal and Vancouver was 8 changes. [Citation required] The 2800s, as the Hudson type was called, ran from Toronto to Fort William, a distance of 1305 kilometres, while another long engine district from Winnipeg to Calgary was 1,339 kilometres (832 miles). The H1-class semi-current royal hudsons, which were named after them, were particularly notable because one of their classes carried the royal train with King George VI and Queen Elizabeth on the 1939 royal tour across Canada without change or failure. This locomotive, Number 2850, is kept in the exhibition hall of the Exporail of the Canadian Railway Museum in Saint-Constant, Quebec. One of the classes, 2860, was restored by the B.C. government and was commissioned on the B.C. railway between 1974 and 1999. [Citation required] Canadian Pacific Railway said on Monday that it had colored a multi-year contract with A.P.