On April 14, the third anniversary of the Canadian Pacific-Kansas City Southern combination that created CPKC—still the first and only single-line transnational railroad connecting the North American nations of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico—the Class I will mark the milestone by posting Pulse of the Continent on its YouTube channel.
The hour-long documentary chronicles CPKC’s 2024 Final Spike Anniversary Steam Tour, an unprecedented 9,000-plus-mile, three-nation round-trip journey that began in Calgary on April 24, 2024 to mark the one-year anniversary of CPKC’s official merger. The train, led by The Empress, H-1b Hudson-type 4-6-4 2816 built by Montreal Locomotive Works in December 1930, delighted thousands who gathered trackside to see it go by and participate in special events along the way.
Thanks to the generosity of CPKC President and CEO Keith Creel and Assistant Vice President Communications and Media Relations Patrick Waldron, who worked closely with the film crew as Supervising Producer, I’ve viewed Pulse of the Continent—several times. This awe-inspiring piece of cinematic art will be available April 14 to anyone who wishes to view it.
Pulse of the Continent was shown in a public premiere in Calgary at the 2025 Calgary International Film Festival this past September. It was also shown at the Morelia International Film Festival in Mexico in October 2025. It had a special screening tied to CPKC’s annual Holiday Train’s stop at Kansas City Union Station in November 2024 and has been screened for employees. But its debut on CPKC’s YouTube channel “will be the first time it’s available digitally for all to see,” Waldron told me.
The “star” of Pulse of the Continent is, of course, 2816, which is lovingly described as akin to a living being, with a heart and soul. Anyone who has had the opportunity to experience one of these mechanical marvels, with all their exposed moving parts, belching steam and smoke, emitting hissing and pumping sounds, with a bell and whistle you can see at work, can attest to that description.
Among Pulse of the Continent’s “supporting cast” from CPKC are, in no particular order, Justin Tracy, Senior Manager, Heritage Mechanical and Steam; Jonathan J. Morris, Manager Operating Practices, Steam; Adam Meeks, Director, Heritage Services and Operations; James Clements, Senior Vice President, Strategic Planning and Technology; Cinthia Melissa Guillen Pinales, Deputy Director, Monterrey (Mexico) Control and Operations Center; Oscar Augusto del Cueto Cuevas, President and Executive Representative, CPKC de México; Krystian Bialorucki, Heritage Locomotive Specialist; and Keith Creel. Of course, there are many, many others who pulled together to pull off the tour.
On March 15, 2023, when the Surface Transportation Board approved the CPKC merger, Keith Creel told me about yet-to-be named Final Spike Anniversary Steam Tour. I was proud to break the news in Railway Age. It’s not often we have the opportunity, but I considered it a fitting honor, given this publication’s own history (established 1856, with an antecedent dating to 1832) and its place in railroading history.
Pulse of the Continent captures the significance of all the historic “firsts” the Final Spike Anniversary Steam Tour accomplished: First steam locomotive to unite North America with a single tour. First steam locomotive to operate in Mexico since the 1960s. Longest steam excursion in history. Impressive are they all.
Yet, what really struck me were the descriptions provided by those who put their hearts and souls into the tour: “Personal sacrifice.” “Emotional experience” “Source of pride.” “Labor of love.” “Overwhelming passion.” “Everybody loves the 2816.” And finally, when they returned to Calgary and their loved ones after some 70 days on the railroad, “She’ll get you home.”
For me, seeing the thousands of people in Mexico who came out to marvel at 2816, most of whom had never seen a working steam locomotive, was particularly inspiring. It proves beyond a doubt that Mexicans (and Canadians, too) are just as much a part of our shared North American society as anyone who identifies as “American.”
Pulse of the Continent begins and ends with excerpts from Walt Whitment’s wonderful poem To a Locomotive in Winter, which cites those very words 13 lines in. Here it is, in its entirety:
Thee for my recitative,
Thee in the driving storm even as now, the snow, the winter-day declining,
Thee in thy panoply, thy measur’d dual throbbing and thy beat convulsive,
Thy black cylindric body, golden brass, and silvery steel,
Thy ponderous side-bars, parallel and connecting rods, gyrating, shuttling at thy sides,
Thy metrical, now swelling pant and roar, now tapering in the distance,
Thy great protruding head-light fix’d in front,
Thy long, pale, floating vapor-pennants, tinged with delicate purple,
The dense and murky clouds out-belching from thy smoke-stack,
Thy knitted frame, thy springs and valves, the tremulous twinkle of thy wheels,
Thy train of cars behind, obedient, merrily following,
Through gale or calm, now swift, now slack, yet steadily careering;
Type of the modern—emblem of motion and power—pulse of the continent,
For once come serve the Muse and merge in verse, even as here I see thee,
With storm and buffeting gusts of wind and falling snow,
By day thy warning ringing bell to sound its notes,
By night thy silent signal lamps to swing.
Fierce-throated beauty!
Roll through my chant with all thy lawless music, thy swinging lamps at night,
Thy madly-whistled laughter, echoing, rumbling like an earthquake, rousing all,
Law of thyself complete, thine own track firmly holding,
(No sweetness debonair of tearful harp or glib piano thine,)
Thy trills of shrieks by rocks and hills return’d,
Launch’d o’er the prairies wide, across the lakes,
To the free skies unpent and glad and strong.
See also:
Transnational Triumph
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