Mossleigh Alberta - It's not every day a person sees a locomotive being picked up.
 
But a 99 ton diesel engine was picked up on 29 Apr 2015 by two massive cranes and moved onto a railway line by the Mossleigh grain elevators.
 
The locomotive will pull five cars, two passenger cars, an open air car, a salon car, and the caboose on Aspen Crossing's new railway tours, which begins taking tourists and locals alike on scenic rides through the prairies on 15 May 2015.
 
The engine originally came from Moose Jaw and was transported by rail to Lethbridge.
 
"We started moving it here in February," said Jason Thornhill, owner of Aspen Crossing, but Aspen Crossing ran into delays moving it by rail.
 
The locomotive was trucked to Mossleigh before being loaded back onto the railway, and then was to be taken to Aspen Crossing by another locomotive.
 
"It was supposed to come by rail," said Thornhill.
 
But the railway line on which Aspen Crossing had hoped the locomotive would be delivered became plugged with grain cars, he said.
 
The S3 model is a first-generation diesel engine, built in the early 1950s by the Montreal Locomotive Works.
 
"It's from the days when steam was being replaced by diesel," said Thornhill.
 
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