Railroaders' Nostalgia > "No Regular Service"

In Canada, both CP and CN had a vast network of prairie branchlines. In the employee timetables, many of the individual subdivisions showed "No Regular Service" under the train schedule column. This meant service as required. Many of these lines only operated during the grain harvest.

As an operating employee on a busy main line, I wondered how these once a week or less branch lines were worked. The answer was a 'tramp freight". A locomotive and caboose would depart a crew terminal, and during the course of several days would travel up several connected branch lines and spot loads and empties at various grain elevators.

These trains had regular locations to tie up for the night, where the train crew would sleep in the caboose, and the engine crew would sleep at a company supplied bunkhouse. Typically, the "enginemans bunkhouse" would be a "portable". This was a small wooden building capable of being transported on a 40 foot flat car.No plumbing, but an outhouse out back. A hose with running water was supplied for both cooking and watering the locomotive, and either a boxcar or a small shed contained coal. Usually these tiny terminals were near some sort of a town which hopefully had a hotel with a "beer parlour" or a Royal Canadian Legion.

Authority to operate on these branch lines would be a "run extra" train order issued from the last open train order station, which was also the location where an agent/operator would issue instructions for cars to be set out and picked up.

Even remote grain elevators would have a grain company agent who would confer with the conductor about set outs and pickups, and perhaps share a coffee with the train crew.

These lines did see the occasional service of a track maintenance crew. In the days before radio, they would protect their work locations with flags and detonators. Again, there was no urgency, they would stop the train while they completed a task.

These branch lines started to vanish in the 1960's, and most were gone by the 1980's. The grain companies started to close the small wooden grain elevators in favour of large concrete elevators on the main lines.

Sadly, often the small towns would vanish once the grain elevators were gone.  The older elevators received grain originally by horse and cart and later by progressively larger trucks, starting at one tons. Today, many grain farmers have "Super B" semi trucks and trailers.

Today, sometimes virtually all traces that there was ever a branch line have vanished. Most had little in the way of track ballast and these lines seldom had fences. Sometimes if a line crossed through a farm, the farmer would plow the right of way under.

The employees who worked these lines are all retired and many have passed on. The "tramp" freights paid well and often had senior crews. The only drawback was they were away from home for prolonged times. They had to be abit nomadic. When the harvest was all shipped, the tramp freights would be cancelled and the employees would have to bump onto main line jobs.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/19/21 15:27 by eminence_grise.

Great story. A Canadian gem.

rrcaboose

Thanks for the informative post.Sounds like something I would have liked when I was working. We had something similar on the old Orient out of San Angelo to Presidio and back.Bill Webb

spider1319 Wrote:
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> Thanks for the informative post.Sounds like
> something I would have liked when I was working.
> We had something similar on the old Orient out of
> San Angelo to Presidio and back.Bill Webb

I suspect agricultural branch lines had similar operations in the USA. Older employee timetables showed mixed train service on many of these prairie branchlines. The pattern of operation was very similar, except with a combine passenger car and sometimes a boxcar to pick up LCL (Less than carload) freight . Timothy Eaton's was a major mail order store in Canada, along with Simpson-Sears and Dupuis Freres.  Eatons marketed "kit houses" for $579, delivered to your town or village in two boxcars. A popular option for homesteaders. Most towns had a vehicle ramp, to which tractors, and other farm equipment were shipped.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/21/21 13:11 by eminence_grise.

The UP had roving agents who used a van to do waybilling at various locations in the Pacific Northwest years ago.

Mike Root
Madras, OR

That is cool, sounds like trucking but with a train!

Thanks for sharing that, it was a great story. I enjoyed reading it very much, and visualizing the living conditions of the crew and rural people they were working with.

I wish it were still like that.

Posted from iPhone

Great post, Mr. _grise. Had some harvest-time adventures on the branches here, but they don't compare. Sorry for the 'picture of a picture', but here's Santa Fe's version of the mobile agent, shortlineboss...Suzie's van. Don't judge her driving from the photo, it's my lack of savvy that put her in this predicament.

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Both CP and CN radically changed the station agent's job in the 1970's, creating regional Customer Service Centres on CP and Servocentres on CN. A few of the agents became "mobile agents" with fancy cars (Buicks). They did have a powerful railroad radio. When I worked some branchlines in British Columbia, the train could be miles from a road and the mobile agent's radio would come in crystal clear. The agents did lose some of their authority because the regional service centres handled car supply. I remember a sawmill owner specifying that the mill needed a specific number of a specific type of bulkhead flatcars. The mobile agent, who was there in person promised that the railway would supply the cars. The mill owner hired extra help to load the cars. The regional service centre supplied the wrong number and type of cars, and when quizzed had a "so what" attitude. Guess what, the mill owner switched to trucks. Very unhappy mobile agent and way freight crew. Angry mill owner. Happy truck drivers. Rail line abandoned in 1989, mill still active and still shipping by truck.

Would that line be the one South of Spences Bridge?

Mike Root
Madras, OR

shortlineboss Wrote:
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> Would that line be the one South of Spences
> Bridge?

Precisely, the event took place at Merritt BC. As far as I know, Aspen Planers, still an active mill ceased shipping by rail after that one.

Interesting times.
I was in Merrit and met the MLA and Aspen Planers people, I think they from either Asian or middle east.  I explained what was happening and that CP was ready to pull the rail beginning when TC gave the approval.  There was quite a bit of outbound forest products on the line.  Shortly afterwards, the rail started to be removed from Spences Bridge South.

Mike Root
Madras, OR