Canadian Railroads > “Sibley Park” – Under Cover

After sitting outside at ExpoRail, the Canadian Rail Museum in Saint-Constant, QC......”Sibley Park” has been moved into the Angus Pavilion where it will be cosmetically restored.

Sibley was considered surplus by VIA Rail and not rebuilt as part of the HEP I programme back in the late ‘80s.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/19 05:16 by ghCBNS.

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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/19 05:19 by ghCBNS.

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Its positioned on one of the pit tracks in the museum giving a view not usually seen:

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ghCBNS Wrote:
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> Its positioned on one of the pit tracks in the
> museum giving a view not usually seen:

The "carman's view". :-)

GTD

Shoe brakes on the car ? I thought that all the Canadian Budds had disk brakes.

What was it about this car that it was chosen as surplus as opposed to some of the other Parks. How many Park Cars remain in service?  I know Fundy Park was wrecked early on. And Algonquin Park was in Michigan under private ownership. Are all others still in use?  I wondered why I never encountered Sibley on any of my Canadian train travels. Fundy Park, for the reason stated above is the only other Park Car I haven 't ridden in. 

andersonb109 Wrote:
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> What was it about this car that it was chosen as
> surplus as opposed to some of the other Parks. How
> many Park Cars remain in service?  I know Fundy
> Park was wrecked early on. And Algonquin Park was
> in Michigan under private ownership. Are all
> others still in use?  I wondered why I never
> encountered Sibley on any of my Canadian train
> travels. Fundy Park, for the reason stated above
> is the only other Park Car I haven 't ridden in. 

For some reason, Via chose not to convert Sibley Park to HEP when the others were rebuilt.  Via donated many surplus items along with the car, so it will be fully restored inside with genuine Budd and CP items. The "Group of Seven" mural from the Mural Lounge was donated to the National Art Museum collection, but it is planned that a replica of the mural will be placed in Sibley Park. The name celebrates the "Sleeping Giant" mountain just west of Thunder Bay, Ontario which includes some of Canada's earliest ski jumps.  This part of Ontario is very close to northern Minnesota. Searching "Sibley", google comes up with Sibley being the first Governor of Minnesota. It could be he was discoverer of this part of Ontario as well. Anyone know?
 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/19 11:15 by eminence_grise.

skidroe Wrote:
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> Shoe brakes on the car ? I thought that all the
> Canadian Budds had disk brakes.

Looks like a switch was made when the car was retired. It would seem that clasp trucks from a CC&F car were used so that VIA could keep an extra CUDO set on hand. Railroads often removed the best trucks from rolling stock that was slated for retirement and set them aside for spares, or in some cases, replaced older trucks on cars still in operation. SP did this on a few of it's PS Daylight cars in the 1960's. Most of those trucks were from retired sleeping cars. 

This car does not look so good underneath. A fair amount of corrosion exists around the panels.  



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/19 12:10 by ATSF3751.

andersonb109 Wrote:
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> What was it about this car that it was chosen as
> surplus as opposed to some of the other Parks. How
> many Park Cars remain in service?  I know Fundy
> Park was wrecked early on. And Algonquin Park was
> in Michigan under private ownership. Are all
> others still in use?  I wondered why I never
> encountered Sibley on any of my Canadian train
> travels. Fundy Park, for the reason stated above
> is the only other Park Car I haven 't ridden in. 

There are 3 Parks that were not rebuilt to HEP and were later sold or donated.  I believe the other Park that was sold to a party in the US is the Riding Mountain Park. 

Thank you for posting these fascinating photos.  

I had heard that Sibley Park was saved for a museum display, it is great to see how she looks today.  While the interior appointments reflect the VIA steam heat era, it would be super to see the can back in the original Canadian Pacific livery.

While the disc brakes trucks have been swapped with the original, and there is minor corosion to non-structural elements of the car, Sibley Park looks great to me.  I look forward to making a trip from Southern California to visit the display via ViA some day! 

This one fascinates me because Sibley is my wife's maiden name; there is not any connection to the Park at all, just coincidence. I think I have one photograph of this one in service, can't remember offhand if it's in CP or VIA livery.
Fred

eminence_grise Wrote:
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> The name celebrates the "Sleeping Giant"
> mountain just west of Thunder Bay, Ontario which
> includes some of Canada's earliest ski jumps. 
> This part of Ontario is very close to northern
> Minnesota. Searching "Sibley", google comes up
> with Sibley being the first Governor of Minnesota.
> It could be he was discoverer of this part of
> Ontario as well. Anyone know?

The Sleeping Giant is actually east of Thunder Bay and forms part of the park, which was renamed Sleeping Giant Provincial Park in 1988, although the peninsula itself retains the Sibley name.  Sibley is also the name of the adjacent township through which the CP Nipigon Subdivision runs. 

Sibley's Wikipedia entry does not note any particular activity north of the border, although he did start his career in the border town of Sault Ste. Marie.

andersonb109 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What was it about this car that it was chosen as
> surplus as opposed to some of the other Parks. How
> many Park Cars remain in service?  I know Fundy
> Park was wrecked early on. And Algonquin Park was
> in Michigan under private ownership. Are all
> others still in use?  I wondered why I never
> encountered Sibley on any of my Canadian train
> travels. Fundy Park, for the reason stated above
> is the only other Park Car I haven 't ridden in. 

VIA has 14 active Park Cars still in their fleet - a pretty good number considering they can only be attached to the "rear" of a train. Even in Peak Season, you are only looking at:

- 2 for the Prince Rupert Train
- 4 for the Canadian (converted to Prestige)
- 2 for the Ocean Train

So they have 6 Park Cars in reserve, which is a pretty descent amount of cars. THe Hudson Bay train often gets a Park Car seasonally - probably could give it full-time. They could also operate on on seasonally on the remote routes in Quebec. Glad they brought back the Park Car for the Ocean. Originally this was not to be when the Renaissance cars came out - or just operating seasonally at best. VIA does offer the Park Cars to be rented out. 

In the numbering sequence, one can note that there are at least 5 Park Cars that VIA either took out of service, or were taken out of service prior to VIA inheriting the cars from CP.

Why or how VIA chose what Park Cars would be "surplus"  - not sure. Somewhat surprised they just didn't look to refurbish all of them, as they certainly have had "surplus" Park Cars for a while if truth be known.  
 

andersonb109 Wrote:
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> Fundy Park, for the reason stated above is the only other Park Car I haven 't ridden in. 

Here's a picture of what was left of it after the 1959 wreck at Gull Lake, SK.  Since the rear-end collision happened in the wee hours of the morning, it was reported that only four people were in the forward bedrooms of the car.  It was a miracle they survived.  If you look in the center of the photo, you'll see a blue square (behind the metal chunk with the black square on it).  Thats the mural from the 'mural lounge'

It's easy to see why the car was not rebuilt. 

Here's the write-up about if from the Winnipeg newspaper:

https://newspaperarchive.com/winnipeg-free-press-aug-17-1959-p-1/

https://newspaperarchive.com/winnipeg-free-press-aug-17-1959-p-4/



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/11/19 02:09 by CA_Sou_MA_Agent.

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Didn't VIA Rail buy "Silver Sky" from the D&RGW after the Rio Grande Zephyr stopped as a replacement Park car, then decided against. ?

I think that car is rotting away somewhere.

joemvcnj Wrote:
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> Didn't VIA Rail buy "Silver Sky" from the D&RGW
> after the Rio Grande Zephyr stopped as a
> replacement Park car, then decided against. ?
>
> I think that car is rotting away somewhere.

VIA disposed of "Silver Sky" when they off loaded the 3 non-HEP'd Park cars.   Apparently it was a complete mess inside as work had started to rebuild the interior but work was stopped at that point.  Rumour was that it was to be named Jasper Park.  Sacrilegious as the actually Jasper Park is in CNR territory.

4489 Wrote:
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> joemvcnj Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Didn't VIA Rail buy "Silver Sky" from the D&RGW
> > after the Rio Grande Zephyr stopped as a
> > replacement Park car, then decided against. ?
> >
> > I think that car is rotting away somewhere.
>
> VIA disposed of "Silver Sky" when they off loaded
> the 3 non-HEP'd Park cars.   Apparently it was a
> complete mess inside as work had started to
> rebuild the interior but work was stopped at that
> point.  Rumour was that it was to be named Jasper
> Park.  Sacrilegious as the actually Jasper Park
> is in CNR territory.

I had heard the same about the name "Jasper Park." According to the 1999 Trackside Guide, Via also had seven Skyline-type cars in storage. Those cars were visible from passing trains in  Montreal. After the drastic cuts to VIA of Jan. 1990 they were all considered surplus but remained there for a long time.