I took this picture one spring Saturday morning back in 1974 when we were leaving Rosedale Junction on the Canadian National Railways for our trip over to Drumheller than back on to our Canadian Pacific Railway track at Kneehill Junction 10 miles further west. I was working as the tailend brakeman we had just met the CNR operator from Drumheller who had drove over to give us our orders so we could travel this portion of our 118 mile trip home to Calgary and we were returning caboose hop for this portion of the trip, we had left Calgary Thursday morning staying in Wimborne and working from there to East Coulee on the Friday we had switched the coal mine on Friday and tied up there for the evening this was the last operating coal mine in the whole Drumheller Valley and one time it provided coal for homes all over Canada the scenery here is spectacular as it is Badlands and is famous for dinosaur bones. You can see the early morning sunlight out of the back door of the caboose, my parka is hanging on nail by the caboose stove which incidentally is burning East Coulee coal the kettle is on to provide hot water for doing the dishes from breakfast. You can see the cord on the ceiling that runs the length of the caboose it is the conductors of emergency valve which he can pull to place the train into emergency at any time. In the hallway there is to metal ladders to climb up into the copula and lockers for storage along with the icebox for refrigerating our food. There is one kerosene lamp above the sink, and there are extra water containers on the floor in front of the sink along with the one behind the sink which gives us enough water for a three-day trip.

http://www.railwayearth.com/fi...view_at_Rosedale.jpg

http://www.railwayearth.com/fi...op_at_Drumheller.jpg

http://www.railwayearth.com/fi...umheller_station.jpg

http://www.railwayearth.com/fi...boose_Drumheller.jpg

Here are some other pictures I took at Drumheller when we stopped to register our train you can see our engines and caboose, the CNR Drumheller station with train orders signal at clear, a CNR caboose. As no other trains were coming behind us or against us we took the opportunity to do some shopping at the grocery store next to the station. That's all for tonight more for tomorrow.

Buchaneer
IHC Charter Member 28
IHC Life Member (L7)

Larry,
This is an excellent picture of what railroading was all about. I'll bet some great tales were shared in this car. Don't we wish the walls could talk?

Phil Dellinger
NAWCC# 157070
IHC Life Member (L12)

Larry, thanks for sharing both the story and your photos with us. It had been a while since your last one and I had missed seeing them. As someone with NO railroading experience (unless you count riding the L.I.R.R. as a youngster) your "Tales Fron the Rails" gives a wonderful flavor to the interest in the timepieces that the railroad men carried.

Ed Ueberall
NAWCC #49688
IHC #34

thanks Larry ~ appreciate the trip...wonder what clocks were in stations there?...I'll wager Pequegnat Brandons or Monctons?...thanks much...Jim C

Jim:

It's funny how some things one can remember so well and others pass us by. All the railway station clocks on the CPR were Seth Thomas of course but I can't remember the register clock at Drumheller the line was Canadian Northern when the railway was originally built before World War I and of course we didn't book in or out of that station as a crew. Only the conductor was required to register our train as prescribed by the rules. I do have two examples of CNR clocks in my collection both are Seth Thomas weight regulators built for the Ball Watch Company of Cleveland, Ohio one is a No. 3 Regulator with a 12 hour dial that must have been used in Eastern Canada, the other is a No. 2 Regulator with a 24 hour dial that came from McBride, British Columbia which was part of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway before the first World War. I have seen some beautiful examples of Pequenault clocks but none in active service.

Larry Buchan


IHC Charter Member 28
IHC Life Member (L7)

Ed:

Interesting what you said about riding the Long Island Railroad in your youth, those must have been exciting times. In the spring of 1982 I made my second trip east of Alberta using my pass to travel from Calgary to Toronto on the CPR's Canadian. I flew to Cincinnati Ohio to attend my first regional at Fort Mitchell, Kentucky from there I flew to Baltimore and rented a car to drive up to Pennsylvania and see the museums in Columbia and at Strasburg I then went back to Baltimore and caught one of Amtrak's Electroliners from Baltimore to New York City arriving at Pennsylvania Station, of course this was the new Pennsylvania station not the one that was torn down that you must remember. I spent three days in New York City but never did get a chance to go out to Long Island, I once corresponded with a retired locomotive engineer who wrote a book called Long Island Memories, it's about his career on L.I.R.R. I departed from Grand Central on my return trip to Toronto on the Maple Leaf looking forward to getting back that way someday.

Larry


IHC Charter Member 28
IHC Life Member (L7)

I want to tell my CPR rider story so will take this opportunity to piggyback it onto Larry’s super CPR thread!

In 1956 I rode the CPR from Toronto to Windsor. I checked my suitcase through. It got lost. CPR said No problem, we’ll go to Lost and Found. We went down several levels under the terminal to a cavernous space that was – no kidding – about one city block wide and four city blocks long and stacked floor-to-ceiling with lost suitcases – and they said Go ahead, look through them, take your time. I looked for a couple of hours, found maybe 500 that looked like mine. Well, on closer inspection they were almost like mine.

I’ve mentioned this before and have been told that as that monstrous warehouse full of lost bags attests, my experience wasn’t unusual.

A couple weeks later they found my suitcase and delivered it to me!

...we (in Windsor) eventually find those things we've lost...seems a stretch to have lost it from Toronto however...may have had a 'scent' Dog on it...methinks...Jim C

Dog:

Was the lost and found in Windsor or Toronto? Wherever it was in sure sounds like a big one to me. Here in Calgary when passenger trains were still running, sometimes on my way to book out I would find suitcases lying on the platform that had fallen off the baggage carts. I guess in retrospect nothing changes as airport baggage handlers are just as efficient in losing and damaging luggage.

Buchaneer


IHC Charter Member 28
IHC Life Member (L7)

Here is a nice addition to this topic and should bring back good memories for some. I called Mark Bradley of Bradley Woodworks and got his permission to use the image on our IHC Discussion Site. I told him I would also include the link to his website. He has some very nice RR Depot clocks to look at!!

http://www.bradleywoodworks.com/

Phil Dellinger
NAWCC# 157070
IHC Life Member (L12)

Larry, thanks for the great story and pictures. Thanks also to those who added their experiences. There does seem to be something special about the railroad and all that is connected with it.

My grandfather was a conductor on the Pierre Marquette in Michigan. My dad worked on the rip track for NYC later Penn Central. For a while I worked for the Grand Trunk in their offices downtown. (Not working on the line, but in the office, I'll never have the great stories that Larry and others had.) but my dad never drove a car, and because he worked for the railroad the family could travel free on the NYC and once a year could get a guest pass on other lines. I grew up riding the trains and have many great memories of those trips.

Keep the stories coming!!

Tom Seymour
NAWCC #41293
IHC #104
IHC Exec.V.P.

Where I left off yesterday our trip home is really just beginning once we leave the CNR mainline, which incidentally the track speed is good for 45 mph, at Kneehill Junction. This is where the work begins on our turkey trail where the track speed is 20 mph with lots of slow orders of 10 mph and we have to start picking up all loads of grain we spotted at country elevators on our way down to East Coulee on Friday along with storage empties we have listed to pick up stops are made at the towns of Nacmine, Kirkpatrick, Dunphy, Hesketh, Sharples Carbon switching out the elevator tracks and we will have by that time at least 30 to 40 cars of grain and miscellaneous empties for our struggle up along Kneehill Creek to Cosway Junction Junction, at Acme we would pick up our traffic of grain and sulfur tanks we left Friday morning, the next stops along the way of the towns of Acme, Beisker, Irricana, Keoma,and Langdon the junction of the Strathmore Subdivision by then our train consist could be up to 80 cars another 14 miles to the West brings us to Shepard the junction with the Brooks Subdivision CPR's mainline and seven miles east of Alyth or final destination. It's nice to be home for Saturday night and Sunday to rest up for Monday when we start all over again.

More stories and pictures tomorrow

Buchaneer


IHC Charter Member 28
IHC Life Member (L7)

Larry did you carry mail?

Dog:

No we didn't carry mail, but back in 1968 there was a scheduled Mixed Train that ran on these subdivisions. I'm going to the pensioners luncheon today and I will have to ask some of the old-timers if they were still carrying mail at that time.

Buchaneer


IHC Charter Member 28
IHC Life Member (L7)

Dog:

I talked to one of the Conductors, who told me the government mail came off the passenger trains in Canada in 1966 this was the final blow for many trains as the government contracts made the difference between making profits and keeping a lot of the trains on, but that's the price we pay for progress.



IHC Charter Member 28
IHC Life Member (L7)