Canadian Railroads > GG1 & GG2

(no - neither the PRR nor the Quebec Central locomotives!)

On the 29th of July, 1976 my afternoon commute took me to Windsor Station in Montreal, and I found these two special cars on one of the tracks. These were Government of Canada cars GG1 and GG2 (GG = Governor General). GG1 is the car with the platform; GG2 is a sleeper. They were Hawker Siddeley Canada cars, similar to CN's Tempo cars.

The summer olympic games were going on at the time, so no doubt the cars were being used by senior government people. In fact, as I was taking my last pictures, I was approached by a young guy in a suit who told me that it was prohibited to take pictures of these cars.

At one of the Olympic events I attended in the Montreal Forum, Canada's Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and his family were sitting mid-way up on the other side of the arena.

Ray

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Ray....these are great! (along with the Turbos you’ve posted) Keep the B&Ws coming!

Thank you for sharing these photos.

As I recall, they were sold by VIA as part of a sale of other equipment about 8 years ago. Does anyone know their current/final disposition?

This pair didn't become the Burrard and Beford did they? . . . . I know when they were put up for sale, the asking price was close to seven figures for the pair. . .

Craig
http://mcmrailvideos.com/

rrhistorian Wrote:
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> Thank you for sharing these photos.
>
> As I recall, they were sold by VIA as part of a
> sale of other equipment about 8 years ago. Does
> anyone know their current/final disposition?

They were built by Hawker Siddely at Thunder Bay ON in 1967 to replace two older heavyweight cars. The official handover took place at Ottawa Union station before a large crowd who arrived from Montreal on a railfan excursion behind CN 6218. The older cars were donated to the National Museum of Science and Transportation, also in Ottawa.

The images were taken on July 1st, 1967, the official centenary of Confederation, and the handover of the new Vice-Regal cars was just one of many celebrations taking place that day in Canada's Capitol.

The older cars were built for the Canadian Government by Canadian Car and Foundry in 1927 as served as the Regal cars on the 1939 and 1951 Royal Trains. These cars also visited the US Capitol in 1939 with the King & Queen and may have hosted President Roosevelt.

They went to Via and about 8 years ago were sold to the Three Valley Gap hotel and ghost town near Revelstoke BC. The late Gordon Bell collected many things, among them railway business cars and was a master of auction purchases.

He purchased a huge grain storage silo from Texas from one sale, masses of structural steel from another, and a great quantity of large, framed glass windows from another. With his extended family, they built a large steel covered roundhouse similar in appearance to a B&O covered roundhouse. Gordon Bell died of a massive heart attack in his early seventies, but the family carry on the business.

Via sold him the cars, but not the trucks under them. When the cars were being transloaded for the short highway journey from Clanwilliam siding on the CP, a crew of railway carmen arrived with four older drop equalised passenger car trucks, and took the lightweight trucks away.

I watched the whole process, many of the carmen were my friends. With the help of a highway crane truck, the whole truck change out took perhaps half an hour. The crane operator was very skilled, and the carmen knew all the specialised hand signals. Once completed, everyone met for a brief cup of coffee from a Thermos and went their ways. Job Done.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/25/14 15:17 by eminence_grise.

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Thanks for the great narrative.

I wonder if any pictures of these cars visiting the US are in existence?

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
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> Thanks for the great narrative.
>
> I wonder if any pictures of these cars visiting
> the US are in existence?


The Royal Train of 1939 which used a variety of specially decorated locomotives while on CN and CP, also saw the D&H decorate a steam locomotive for Royal Train service in Canada.

The two Government of Canada cars , and a variety of cars from CP and CN were decorated in a Royal blue paint scheme, with a polished stainless steel window band. CP business car "Wentworth" was recently renamed "Royal Wentworth" because it was in the consist of the Royal Train of 1939.

A good question, did they ever travel with the Presidential car "Ferdinand Magellan"?. As far as I know, none of the Government of Canada cars were not armored. One of the cars in the 1939 train carried "protective staff".

In fact, only former Government of Canada Car 1 is preserved at Three Valley Gap in BC.

It was purchased by equipment dealer David Walmsley (hence DAWX reporting mark) before being purchased by Gordon Bell.

The car is shown in the CP yard at Revelstoke BC, and later being lifted off its trucks at Clanwilliam BC.

My guess is that the trucks were sold separately for use on the Algoma Central "Agawa Canyon" former Via "Tempo" coaches.

The dates were Oct.19th and 20th,2005

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Finally, a short highway trip from Clanwilliam to Three Valley BC behind a former Tri-Mac Freightliner cab over.

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Phil,
Do you recall if they had a steerable rear bogie when moving this by rail? Maybe one of our truck driver members can chime in with info on what would have been used.

I can only imagine the nightmare of moving this on the TCH in this day. I couldn't get over the huge population of cars on this 2 lane highway when I was there in August this year.

Rick

The "Royal Train" carrying the King and Queen of England continued on into the States. Were the same cars kept in the States as in Canada or were the royals switched onto other trains when reaching the States? Reason I ask, is that the "Royal Train" passed through an area that I live in and the locals at the time have never been able to tell me what the car types were. The line would have been PRR owned where it passed through my area......

jp1822 Wrote:
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> The "Royal Train" carrying the King and Queen of
> England continued on into the States. Were the
> same cars kept in the States as in Canada or were
> the royals switched onto other trains when
> reaching the States? Reason I ask, is that the
> "Royal Train" passed through an area that I live
> in and the locals at the time have never been able
> to tell me what the car types were. The line would
> have been PRR owned where it passed through my
> area......


My guess is that the two cars pictured here went to the US, and possibly some head end cars. In Canada, the rest of the train were repainted CP and CN cars. My guess is that the NYC and PRR plus the US Government contributed cars to the train in the US.

eminence_grise Wrote:
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> Lackawanna484 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Thanks for the great narrative.
> >
> > I wonder if any pictures of these cars visiting
> > the US are in existence?
>
>
> The Royal Train of 1939 which used a variety of
> specially decorated locomotives while on CN and
> CP, also saw the D&H decorate a steam locomotive
> for Royal Train service in Canada.
>
> The two Government of Canada cars , and a variety
> of cars from CP and CN were decorated in a Royal
> blue paint scheme, with a polished stainless steel
> window band. CP business car "Wentworth" was
> recently renamed "Royal Wentworth" because it was
> in the consist of the Royal Train of 1939.
>
> A good question, did they ever travel with the
> Presidential car "Ferdinand Magellan"?. As far as
> I know, none of the Government of Canada cars were
> not armored. One of the cars in the 1939 train
> carried "protective staff".

This site, part of the book "Royalty Travels by Train" seems to convey that the Canadian cars went to the US. Lots of detail about US locomotives taking the train from Canadian locomotives at the border, etc.

<http://www.themetrains.com/royal-train-roster.htm&lt;