Here's a photo I took on August 27, 1976, FORTY-SIX YEARS AGO, when I made a one-week trip to British Columbia and Alberta.

After making my way from North Vancouver to the Vancouver airport (YVR), here's a photo of the CP Air 727-17 (tail number CF-CPK) that took me back to Los Angeles (LAX). The mid-seventies was probably the zenith of when Canadian Pacific was emphasizing its diversified status with rail, air, truck, ship, communication and hotel operations. Southern Pacific also had dreams of being as diversified as Canadian Pacific, but the ICC and other government agencies wouldn't allow it. Over the years, CP has shed itself of many of those diversified operations as they were either not profitable or did now perform at the level hoped for by CP management.

Canadian Pacific Airlines, or CP Air as it was known in 1976, no longer exists and was absorbed by other carriers through a series of mergers.

Since I flew on CF-CPK, it has spent some time under different owners in Ecuador, the U.K. and Mexico and, as of 2004, was reported as being in storage in Ecuador. I'll have to check my records to see if I flew on the plane again while it was in Mexico, but, offhand, I don't believe I did. When I was making trips to Mexico over the last thirty years, 727s were already being phased out by newer Boeings and Airbuses. See? It's possible for a train nerd to "diversify" and also be a plane nerd!

The fact that it has three fuel-consuming engines compared to a lot of more modern aircraft that only have two, and with a glut of these types of aircraft on the market, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the aircraft never returns to revenue service. Make the storage company an offer and maybe you can place it in your backyard alongside that retired caboose. Someone in Oregon turned an Olympic Airways 727 into their rural cabin.

Note the Western Airlines sign on the jetway---another "fallen flag" air carrier.

[www.airhistory.net]

[www.airliners.net]

Other serials - N116TA with National Aircraft Lsg, HC-BLV / FAE-328 with TAME - Transportes Aereos Mercantiles Ecuatorianos / TAME Lineas Aerea del Ecuador - delivered in April 1985, G-BKCG with Dan-Air London, & TAME, XA-GUU with Mexicana - leased in June 1977, and also HC-BIC with SAN - Servicios Aereos Nacionales - delivered in June 1981. Stored at LTX (Latacunga) on August 17, 2004. At LTX in 2006.