Canadian Railroads > Two BC Rail engineers, Lillooet. July 1995

It was a warm July 15th evening at Lillooet BC, and two locomotive engineers are waiting for their freight trains to arrive for a crew change. A southbound and a northbound are soon to arrive and change crews.

The engineer on the left is Lorne Muirhead and he will take a northbound freight to Williams Lake. The engineer on the right is Bernie Edie and he will take a southbound freight to North Vancouver.

Lorne had a long an interesting railway career. Born at Proctor BC, near Nelson, his first job was as a telegraph messenger for CP at Nelson BC. Next he served as a steward on a CP coastal steamship out of Victoria BC. He then hired on at Esquimalt as a locomotive wiper and later fireman. When RDC's came to the E&N, he found himself short of work without seniority on the rest of CP in BC . He moved to Vancouver and hired on with the PGE (later BC Rail). He later moved to Lillooet until pension in 1999. Note Lorne is wearing army boots, a family member with the same size feet was in the military.

Bernie also had a varied career. He was an engineer for the BC Hydro Railway (formerly BC Electric) which although it was a small Vancouver area railway, had two seniority districts. In the early 1990's, CP took over operations of the Vancouver and Lulu Island Railway. CP had owned it for many years, but had leased the operations to BC Electric Ry.
When CP took over operations, Bernie found himself displaced. BC Rail hired him. 
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/17/19 19:53 by eminence_grise.

Thanks for the photo and background. I’m curious - what is a locomotive wiper? Do they just...wipe locomotives? :)

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In the steam era, the entry level jobs at the locomotive facilities were general labourers positions. Depending an ability and preference, employees could advance to a variety of maintenance positions which involved apprenticeship or they could advance toward the running (operating) trades. These positions varied from railway to railway and different facilities on a railway. An engine wiper performed a variety of cleaning and light maintenance on locomotives being repaired for service. The next advancement was as a hostler, moving locomotives within the shop facility under the direction of the shop foreman. These positions did not include seniority. At some point, hostlers were deemed experienced enough to become locomotive firemen. When they had made a working trip as a fireman, they started to accrue seniority as a fireman and ultimately locomotive engineer. Depending how busy the railway was, this line of promotion took years, sometimes many years. In 1955, the position of locomotive fireman was abolished on CP and CN, but smaller railway retained this line of promotion for some time later.

Cool story.Thanks for posting.Bill Webb

Adding to Phil's great story. Couple images of Lorne on his last trip, April 1999, Williams Lake to Lillooet on the Budd Car.
Lorne & HoggerDoug.   Lorne & his wife Kim
Doug

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Great to read these human interest stories.
The first railroad I hired out on (Maine Central) used hostlers to bring power from the sand tower and fueling tracks onto the turntable and into the engine house.  Hostlers also brought power from the engine house, spun it on the table if needed, then readied it for the road fireman and engineer to grab it and go.  The normal progression was to fireman then engineer.
Thanks for the interesting story.

I had a long chat with Lorne today, twenty years in retirement and living in Nova Scotia. A lifetime evangelical Christian, he remains active in the church. BC Rail employees were members of the BC Government employees pension plan and so were the BC Hydro Rail employees, so Bernie was able to transfer his pension between the two railways. Lorne has not been active in the BCR Pioneers Association, so he hasn't kept track where his fellow employees went to.

Bernie started at the Canfor logging railway on northern Vancouver Island. He also worked on the CPR out of Nelson BC.Then he went to the White Pass and Yukon until it shut down in 1982. He retired from BC Rail when the CN took over He lives in the Mission BC area. Cheers Greengrocer