After hearing so many stories of life in rural Northern Ontario from my father, you'd think I'd get sick of them. But I don't.
He told me a story the other day of growing up in Chapleau, Ont., where his father (my grandfather) worked as a rolling stock mechanic for the Canadian Pacific. My dad recently took the Canadian across Canada, allowing him to fulfill a childhood dream. He relayed to me a story after his trip, saying he used to enjoy watching the passenger trains go through his town when he was young, including the transcontinentals.
He recalls my grandmother telling him: "Those trains are for rich people." I think it might have been her gentle way of tempering his young dreams a bit, as my father was one of six children who grew up in a modest working-class household. Even though my grandfather had an employee's rail pass for the Canadian Pacific system, I doubt it would have been accepted for the premier transcontinental trains.
Above is a scanned image of a postcard I have in my collection of CP's early Canadian advertisements. I have this poster on the wall of my home office, where I spend my workday and where the Beachburg Sub takes shape.
But I was curious about my dad's recollection. What train was it that he saw that ignited his imagination? The Canadian was launched in 1955 by the Canadian Pacific as the only streamlined transcontinental train across Canada with dome observation cars. CN's Super Continental could not boast the streamlined coaches or domes when it launched at the same time.
Checking the CP Public Timetable from 1956, the westbound Canadian didn't arrive in Chapleau until 4:25 a.m., which means this was not the train my dad saw. However, the eastbound Canadian arrived in Chapleau at 7:21 a.m.*, which makes it possible that this is what my dad saw.
(* - The timetable lists two separate arrival times for this train, the other arrival time being 7:06 a.m.)
It should be noted that CP operated the Canadian from two starting points on its eastern flank at this time. One section operated from Montreal's Windsor Station, where it would make its way west via Ottawa, Carleton Place, Pembroke, Chalk River and through to Sudbury, where it would then be combined with the separate Toronto section of the train, which originated from Union Station in downtown Toronto. The Montreal section of the Canadian was Train 1 westbound while the Toronto section was Train 11. The eastbound return sections of the train, which were split at Sudbury, were Train 2 to Montreal and Train 12 to Toronto.
This image, above, is of the Canadian circa 1968 at Carleton Place, Ont., west of Ottawa. By this time, the train could have been fully transitioned to its CP Rail action red scheme, from its original maroon and yellow trim. However, I am reasonably sure that this was likely the style of Canadian that my dad would have seen in the late 1950s and early 1960s going through Chapleau. Photo is courtesy of the Canada Science and Technology Museum online archives.
There's another layer to this story from my dad. Was it really the Canadian that had him dreaming as young boy? After all, the Canadian Pacific also had another transcontinental train, the Dominion, that made its way through Chapleau at the same time.
Unlike the Canadian in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Dominion was not a fully equipped streamliner. It was CP's second premier cross-Canada train, having begun operations in 1931 as a summer special before becoming a regular fixture in the timetable. This train itself was the successor to CP's first transcontinental train, the Imperial.
Like its sister transcon, the Dominion also operated in two sections east of Sudbury, one originating in Montreal and the other from Toronto's Union Station. The Montreal section was added shortly after the train first began operations from Toronto.
Looking at CP's 1956 schedule, this train was clearly the forgotten stepchild once the Canadian was introduced. Its slower schedule meant it was significantly shortened after 1955, as its express mail business was shifted to fast freight trains and the speedier Canadian. The concept for the Dominion changed from a true transcontinental train to a train that provided local service across the continent. It seems as though its mission switched to being a local train that people would take to various points all along its run from the east to Vancouver. It soldiered on until 1966, when it was officially discontinued. In 1967, a version of the train was retained to take people to and from Montreal for the Centennial Expo.
But for my purposes, I am interested in when it made its way through Chapleau. Looking at the same CP timetable from 1956, the westbound Dominion arrived in town at 11:55 a.m while the eastbound arrived at 5 p.m.
This, to me, is proof that my dad likely saw the Dominion coming through town, and not the Canadian. Still, to a young boy, I would imagine either train would have been fairly impressive in the late 1950s and early 1960s. At a time when both CP and CN were seeing the last of steam, the steamlined transcons, likely pulled by sleek diesel units, would have been a modern marvel.
I'm assuming that, since the Canadian was all sleek and modern when introduced in 1955, the Dominion was still very much a product of earlier passenger rail cars, like this.
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The other question that comes to mind when considering my dad's story is what pulled the Dominion in the mid- to late-1950s? Thanks to Eric Gagnon of Trackside Treasure, I can confirm that this train was usually pulled by Montreal Locomotive Works FP units in an A-B-A arrangement. The same was true for the Canadian. Here's an explanation from Eric:
The FPs (ordered by CP as dual service Freight/Passenger) were needed for the steam generators on the Canadian. They were four feet longer than Fs, due to the steam generator in the carbody. CP ordered eleven new FP9As, 1405-1415, and eight F9Bs, 1900-1907, for the Canadian. It also renumbered five FP7As (4099-4103) to 1400-1404. These FP7s had been purchased in early 1953 and had served on passenger and freight trains in southern Ontario. In dual service, they were geared for 77 mph. When dedicated to the Canadian, they were re-geared to 89 mph, the same as the FP9As.
In sifting through some images from the 1950s in books, which I cannot not reproduce here, I did find one image of the Dominion making its way along the Lake Superior route in 1951. That train, pulled by a steam engine, had six coaches of some sort (possibly a sleeper or dining car, although there's no way to tell from the image), two baggage cars and four mail express cars.
In the same book, I found another image of a passenger train with both streamlined silver and older red passenger cars intermixed. The shot shows the tail end of the train, with a curved observation car with the Dominion markers attached to the back of the train. This image looks like it was taken much later, but there is no way of knowing what train it is from the information in the book. It seems to me it is not the Dominion, which by all accounts was a short train after 1955. Maybe it was an expanded version of the train that served the demand for people going to Montreal's Expo 67.
But, in seeing this photo of the mix of older and newer CP passenger cars together, once again my research jived with information provided by Eric. Even in the 1960s, when the Dominion's status was very much in limbo, the consist of this train was very much a regular mix of older and newer passenger equipment, depending on when you caught the train. The train would look different depending on where it was at in its journey, with cars added on, depending on the needs of where it was geographically.
All this to say, would a train like the Dominion, which was far removed from its peak, be enough to capture the imagination of a young boy in Chapleau in the 1950s? Maybe.