Canadian Railroads > CPR "Canadian" in July 1970

These photos were taken somewhere around Lake Louise the same week as the Supercontinental pix I posted a couple days ago (and are therefore subject to same GAF slide focus/dye color shifts). A great looking train!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/16 05:18 by JPB.

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Great scenery too. We took a short ride in the dome car westward between Lake Lousie and Field, BC over Kicking Horse pass and through the Spiral Tunnels.

Hunter was just starting his RR career at Frisco in 1970...

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The Canadian was a handsome passenger train.  I always thought it interesting the mash-up of power they used however, rather than matched ABBA or ABB F sets, there seemed to include geeps and resember freight power MU's.

Cheers, Jim Fitch

SPDRGWfan Wrote:
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> The Canadian was a handsome passenger train.  I
> always thought it interesting the mash-up of power
> they used however, rather than matched ABBA or ABB
> F sets, there seemed to include geeps and resember
> freight power MU's.
>
> Cheers, Jim Fitch

The "Canadian" added power westbound at Calgary, quite often passenger GP-9's. They had a maximum speed of 65 mph, not a problem in the mountains. The geeps also had small water tanks, meaning more service stops if the steam generators were used on them.

At this time, the head end locomotives would run all the way from Montreal to Vancouver, the Toronto section power turned at Sudbury and was quite often MLW FPA-2'a.

Another feature at that time was the addittion of a boxcar behind the power between Calgary and Vancouver. This carried bagged mail for communities west of Calgary.
The main Calgary post office was just west of the Calgary depot, and had a spur and loading dock. When the power was added at Calgary, the boxcar was picked up.

On the Vancouver end, CP's Drake Street passenger yard was only a few blocks from the main post office on Cambie Street, and the mail must have been delivered by truck to the train while it was being serviced at Drake Street.

The "Canadian" never carried an RPO. Until the early 1960's, there was a remnant of the old "Imperial Limited" which handled mail and express west of Calgary. By that time it terminated at Kamloops.

The last image shows the station at Yoho BC, a siding between the two Spiral tunnels.
 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/16 09:22 by eminence_grise.

Thank you for the great pictures!

"Was a great looking train?"  It still is, albiet it on a different route. Where else can you find a matched set of 1950's Budd built equipent in regular service? Other than a blue letterboard (grey on the premium cars and larger windows on one side) the cars look pretty much the same on the outside as well. And even better inside than I remember them from 1977 which was my first ride on this great train. Next is Friday night. Can't wait.

And what was the "Imperial Limited".

mundo Wrote:
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> And what was the "Imperial Limited".

When CP re-equipped their transcontinental passenger trains, typically the older train sets would retain the train name.  The "Canadian" replaced the "Dominion" and in the 1930's or so, the "Dominion" replaced the "Imperial Limited" which at some time replaced earlier named trains.

Into the 1960's, CP operated the "Canadian" and the "Dominion" on opposite schedules. The "Dominion" sometimes operated in multiple sections. Several portions of the transcontinental route supported a third passenger train, all mail and express plus a rider coach. Where this schedule operated, it was on the schedule of the old "Imperial".

These secondary passenger trains sometimes operated on slightly different routings than the "Canadian".

Pictures 2 and 3 were taken just east of the Great Divide.  For many years, the meadow between the Trans-Canada Highway and the CP tracks had National Parks (or perhaps CP) signposts pointing to nearby peaks. These were carved wood signs and were once very common in Banff Park. I suspect they were carved in the 1940's or 50's and were not replaced when they started to rot.

M. Grise, thank you very much for the deep background on the locations and train operations shown in these photos! We camped out for a few nights at the base of Kicking Horse Pass in the summer of 1970 and I remember a fairly constant parade of box car trains headed slowly up and down the grades through the snow sheds.

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