Most elevator tracks on the CPR were equipped with a wooden platform made out of heavy timbers, and a mound of dirt that was level alongside the timbers, and was sloped into banks on each end, the clearance between the timbers of the platform, and the elevator track were very close, this created a restricted clearance so trainmen had to be aware of their location when riding cars into the elevator tracks, especially at night, and remember to ride on  proper side to avoid personal-injury from being crushed between the platform, and the cars that they were hanging onto. Information on where restricted clearances were located were marked in timetable special instructions, and by signs made out of pipe that was flattened on one end and a double diamond was cut through, these signs were painted bright yellow and were positioned on elevator tracks, spurs, and other industrial complexes where restricted clearances existed as a visual reminder. The purpose of these wooden platforms was to help farmers, and agricultural implement dealers to load and offload farm machinery, such as tractors, and combines that were shipped from the factory or farm on railway flat cars.

One trip North to Wimborne we had a flatcar loaded with combines for the town of Beiseker that was next to our engine, the unloading platform was located on the south end of the elevator track, there were about a dozen other grain empties on spot, and rather than go in from the north and having to couple up all the grain empties including some that were being loaded, which would be a hassle as we would have to get the elevator operator to stop loading so we could pull all the cars out and couple onto the combines to spot it at the platform. So we decided to make a quick move, the elevator track at Beiseker was shaped like a dish, and cars would roll towards the middle from each end, we stopped our train south of the south switch, and cut off the combines from the train, uncoupled the car from the engine that put the airbrake into emergency to hold the car there, and ran the engine up the mainline past the south switch clear of the fouling point of the elevator track, with the derail removed, we lined the switch towards the platform, I got on the north end of the flatcar were the horizontal handbrake wheel was located, the headend brakeman bled off the air from the brake cylinder from the bleed lever located on the side of the car, and it started to roll by gravity into the elevator track, there was a good incline and it picked up speed quickly, I in the meantime was tightening the brake wheel to slow the car down and bring it to a stop at the platform, but with all my strength I could not control the speed and the car kept on rolling past the platform and we plowed into a couple of stationary boxcars spotted at the Parrish and Heimbecker elevator, I held on for dear life and fortunately was not thrown off the car and the combines remained secured, it moved the stationary cars two car lengths northward before everything came to a stop, fortunately the cars were not being loaded at the time, and we came in with the light engine re-spotted the grain empties, and the machinery car at the platform, bracing the wheels with wooden wedges to keep the car in place, the conductor advised car control in Medicine Hat to have the Car Department come out and repair the defective handbrake, and notify the farm implement dealer that the car was not safe to unload until the repairs could be made.

Photos:

1.) OTTX 91955 flatcar loaded with combine TTX or the Trailer Train Company was formed in 1955 by three owners: Pennsylvania Railroad, Norfork and Western Railroad, and the Rail Trailer Corporation, the Companies goal was to standardize rail equipment of railway piggybacking, and other rolling stock in the 1960s the first flat cars equipped with auto racks for loading and unloading automobiles were developed, and 89 foot flat cars with heavy duty tiedown chains entered service for loading heavy machinery.

2.) Farm machinery unloading platform in the yard at East Coulee, Alberta

About April I remember a particular trip that was different from our usual tours of duty. The company’s officials were out making an inspection of the Langdon Subdivision, to do this they had a specially modified four-wheel-drive Chevy suburban SUV that could travel on both the highways, and the railway. This vehicle was called a Hi-rail track inspection van, and was numbered M-101, it had ordinary tires for driving on the highway, and hydraulically controlled 12 inch diameter track wheels for traveling on the railway, the vehicle could be driven on the highway up to any railway crossing and parked parallel to the rails, and with the hydraulics it would be lifted up to travel on the railway, the steering wheel was locked, and the power train of the vehicle transferred its power through idler pulleys that connected the rubber tires to small track wheels that would propel the Hi-rail at speeds up to 50 Miles per hour being a suburban type of vehicle there was lots of room for four people, and their luggage in the back.

We usually owned the railway once we left the mainline of the Brooks Subdivision at Shepard, and we ran as a Work Extra that allowed us to move in both directions, as long as we followed the set schedule of the assignment Monday and Wednesday from Shepard to Wimborne, Tuesday and Thursday from Wimborne to East Coulee, and Wednesday and Saturday East Coulee to Shepard, with side trips down the Irricana subdivision as necessary. Now with the M-101 in the picture on this Monday, we had more than two trains operating, so we had to have a different set of orders clearing us as an Extra North 8836 on the Langdon subdivision, with orders to take the siding at Acme to meet Extra South M-101, they were coming from East Coulee that afternoon. We did all our regular work up to Acme and pulled our train into the siding, we went over and had lunch and returned waiting for the arrival of the Extra South M-101, of course they all had to be on our toes, as these were company officials and could stop and question us to see that we had our proper documentation such as rules qualification cards up to date, along with our railway watch inspection cards, and look for any other infraction of, the rules.

Our Superintendent from Medicine Hat was William R. Flett, a stern disciplinarian and not known for civility, he would be accompanied by the Master Mechanic, who would share the driving of the Hi-rail vehicle, along with the Divisional Engineer who would inspect the track conditions, and the Roadmaster who was responsible for all the section forces on the subdivisions. Our conductor Fred Foulston was a little nervous, in light of the fact that he had just got his rights back to work as a conductor after being demoted for rules violations many years ago by Bill Flett. We were waiting in the caboose, and the head end crew were on the locomotive awaiting there were arrival so we could proceed northward to Wimborne, we waited for over an hour but there was no sign of them. Finally the hotel manager came over from town and told Fred that he was supposed to phone the CPR dispatcher’s office in Calgary, Fred returned and got all our train orders, and returned to the hotel to take new ones from the dispatcher over the telephone. Evidently what had happened was that the hi-rail vehicle was coming around the sharp curve on the Wye at Cosway 2 miles north of us, when they left the rails and crashed into a ditch along the right-of-way, fortunately nobody was badly injured, and they had called for taxis to take them back to their head quarters. So with all our old orders annulled, and new ones for us to operate as a work extra we were able to proceed, going past Cosway we could see the hi-rail vehicle laying on its side in the muddy ditch, a tow truck was on hand to pull it out. So I never got a chance to meet Mr. Flett, which was fine with me.

When I worked at Ogden  locomotive repair shop in 1966, I remember seeing out on the scrap dock  an old 12 cylinder Cadillac hi railtrack inspection vehicle from 1930’s, it was painted in Tuscan red, with the Canadian Pacific shield on the doors, and have a heavy frame made of 8 inch I-beams, with large 30 inch drivers. I wondered how fast they could get this hi rail inspection vehicle going.

Photos;

1.) Hi rail Chevy suburban track inspection vehicle

2.) CPR hi rail track inspection vehicle later model numbered SK 101 (SK for Saskatchewan)

3.) CPR 1929 Packard M 600 hi rail inspection vehicle, notice turntable mechanism underneath.

4.) Another CPR 1930s M 820 hi rail inspection car, this is the one I might have seen at Ogden in 1966.

At the beginning of spring on March 21 it was the CPR’s turn to switch the Atlas mine at East Coulee up.to that time we had brought in our empty coal boxcars for loading and left them in a designated track in the yard, the CNR switched out the mine and left our loads in another track, so all we had to do is lift them, and do our other switching chores around the terminal. So now our crew on arrival there arranged to do all the switching required at the mine,  and Alberta Wheat Pool elevator that was across the Red Deer River. Our switch lists from Medicine Hat car control indicated what cars from our train, and in the yard were required for the mine, and the number of empty grain cars for the elevator. We would switch them out, Fred had arranged for Willy Hermann the section foreman from Nacmine to be there and operate the signals for us to cross the wooden truss bridge over the Red Deer River.

Behind the station at East Coulee was a lead that ran over the turntable, that we used to turn our locomotive when we only had one unit, this lead took us to the ladder tracks on the south side of the yard and there was a lead that connected to the wooden truss bridge, this wooden structure built in the 1940s was unique in that both railway and motor vehicles could travel over it. There was a wooden shanty on the north end of the bridge with controls to direct railway and vehicular traffic on the bridge. Normally Highway traffic had the right-of-way they were electrically controlled highway crossing gates to stop traffic, and electric railway semaphore signals to govern train movements over the bridge. My position was to ride on top of the empty cars across the bridge and up and under the tipple of the Atlas mine where the empty coal boxcars could be loaded. We would take the loads that were listed to pull, and with this done we would spot up any grain empties and lift loads at the Alberta Wheat Pool elevator, when we were finished the locomotive engineer would give Whistle signal Rule 14 (j) four short blasts on the air horn to get Willy the bridge tender’s attention to stop traffic and give us a semaphore signal to return across the bridge back into the yard and switch out the loads placing any for the CNR in the designated track for them to pick up.

Photo illustrations:

1.) A winter view taken in 1974 of Atlas mine loading tipple in the center, and Alberta Wheat Pool elevator on the left taken from the East Coulee yard on the south side of the Red Deer River.
2.) A summer view of the wooden railway and vehicle bridge across the Red Deer River taken from the East Coulee yard the turntable deck is visible in the front right hand side, the highway approach to the bridge, and the bridge tenders shanty in front of the bridge on the south side.
3.) A photo taken by me riding on top of the boxcars on the point of our movement crossing the bridge after passing the bridge tenders shanty, you can see the wooden planking for the vehicles to travel on and the rail tracks running down the middle. Above the bridge on top of the bluff is a structure that was part of the mine’s operation to transfer coal from the mine site on top to the loading tipple.
4.) A view taken looking backward from my perch sitting on top of the wooden running boards on the south end car going across the bridge, these were vintage railway boxcars with their wooden platforms and running boards to cross from car to car with the vertical brake wheel visible on the north end of the car I’m riding, some of these old cars still had horizontal stem wind brakes that could be really dangerous to operate. At this time the CPR were eliminating most of this equipment and taking off the running boards.
5.) View of coal loading tipple at East Coulee’s Atlas mine taken in the 1950s, there were tracks located underneath the structure where I would line switches and ride the cars underneath, watch carefully for restricted clearances which was easy in daylight, but at nighttime one would have to be very wary especially one not familiar with the characteristics.
6.) One final view looking back northward from the Atlas mine towards the wooden bridge and East Coulee.

During the first couple of weeks in March we had a lot of snowfall in Alberta, on Wednesday March 20, 1974 the Zone 3 Wayfreight called for 08:45 we had the CPR 8611 leading, with the crew Locomotive Engineer Stan McPhedran, Conductor Mars Wolfe, Head end Brakeman Alan Greenstein, reading over our paperwork at Alyth we were instructed to run to Shepard caboose hop (locomotives and caboose) where there was a snow plow set off in the second siding we were to marshal it on to our train in front of the locomotive and proceed over the Strathmore sub to Irricana where we were to meet the Roadmaster Louis Visochhi and under his instructions go into snowplow service. Mars (nicknamed Mars Bar) was quite a character, when we had the snowplow all set up Mars said that he would ride on the plow over to Irricana, and he figured he’d help of the roadmaster by operating the snowplow over the Strathmore subdivision, as he said it was easy to run one of these pieces of equipment. I rode on the locomotive with Stan and Alan for a good view of the snowdrifts we were about to hit, it didn’t take Stan long to get our speed up to 30 miles an hour and we started hitting some pretty good drifts, we were plowing a lot more than snow as we were seeing wooden boards, and railway crossing planks flying by the windows along with the snow. It was evident that Mars was not as good at running a snowplow as he made out he was, there are signs along the railway right-of-way warning snowplow operators of approaching railway crossings, and switch stands to give them ample time to raise the front points, and close the side wings to avoid running into them, Mars wasn’t fast enough and on a few locations had torn out some railway crossings, and wooden setoff stands the sectionmen used for setting off their speeders. I’m sure the sectionmen would have had a dim view of our conductor’s efforts to help them with the snowdrifts.

We met Louis at Irricana he said we would be running down the Irricana subdivision to Tudor, and tie up in Irricana for the night, it was a calm clear winter day and the plowing went good with not too many major snowdrifts with two locomotives in our consist we had lots of horsepower to get us through, at Nightingale we derailed the front of the snowplow going over a private crossing that had filled in with ice, this was similar to my experience on the Empress Subdivision that I posted earlier when I was riding a on top of a boxcar that derailed from the same conditions. We had lots of sectionmen on board the snowplow and with some hardwood wedges and a bit of coaxing we were successful in getting the plow back on track, and with their picks and shovels they cleaned out the remaining ice between the rails and the crossing planks. At Nightingale we had to set off one of our locomotives, as there was a weight restriction between there and Tudor Past the manual interlocking tower at the Dunshalt we started hitting some pretty big snowdrifts, one was fairly long and deep we got above halfway through when we stalled, with two locomotives this would not have been a problem, but being down to one unit really slowed us down quickly, once again the sectionmen dugout some of the snow, and we were able to back up far enough to take a better run at the drifts after three attempts we were successful in breaking through and continued on to Tudor uneventfully. On March 21 we continued plowing down Langdon subdivision to Entice, and up the Acme subdivision to Wimborne, we made an effort to do some plowing on the Meers spur but the track was too rough so we aborted that attempt and were finished at 12:15, being in snowplow service we were on continuous pay and made 344 miles, for that part of the trip. We went back on duty in wayfreight service at Wimborne 12:15 we had a momentarily delay when our caboose went off the track going over a private crossing filled with ice, but the section forces soon had us back on track and we arrived back at Alyth and were off duty at 19:15.

Photos:

1.) Picture I took at Nightingale when the snowplow derailed on the ice filled crossing, we are backing up to re-rail the plow, on the left wearing the florescent orange hat is Mars Wolfe our conductor, two of the sectionmen and Roadmaster Louis Visochhi on the right-hand side.
2.) snowplow stuck in drift Section Forman Roman, he and his crew lived in Beiseker in the old CPR roadmaster’s house. He had immigrated to Canada from Romania, and had run and the Berlin Olympics in 1936.
3.) Snowplow with head end brakeman Alan Greenstein to the left, and Roadmaster Louis Visochcci on the right-hand side.
4.) Snowplow CPR 400442 with your author and tail end brakeman.

5.) Section foreman John Lehman from Torrington assists rerailing our caboose at Wimborne

On Monday, February 25 we made our usual trip with Lead unit 8628 the locomotive engineer was Paul Panko, working off the spare board, I had worked with Paul before in the yard, a jovial good-natured character who  loved to smoke cigars, Paul lived in Ogden and I knew he collected Studebaker cars he had over 100 of them in the storage yard of by Shepard. He hated anything made by General Motors because they built all the diesel locomotives that caused him to be laid off when they replaced steam locomotives. Fred Foulston was the conductor we were called for  08:00 out of Alyth and arrived at Wimborne  18:45we were  off duty at  20:00. On Tuesday February 26 we were on duty 07:00 departed 10:00 we arrived and were off duty at East Coulee 20:40. On Wednesday February 27we were on duty at 05:45 arrived and where off duty at Alyth 16:25.

What made this trip memorable was years later I met a retired CPR employee John Sutherland who happened to be out that day on February 26 when we arrived at East Coulee, it was around twilight time and he shot these following photos. One of the abandoned station, and a shot of us approaching East Coulee where the track ran below a cliff that was a bad area for slides, I am sitting in the cupola of the caboose. The other shot was taken further to the west.

On February 21, 1974 we were called for 08:00, Fred had taken a trip off, and my conductor was Ray Burns who I had worked before with on the Maple Creek Subdivision, Ray who didn’t hold a regular conductors assignment, had his name on the list for spare running, and was called out to work Fred’s vacancy for the week, we had 8698 as our lead locomotive, and the engineer was Bert Collins nicknamed “Flatwheel” a moniker given to any railroader who walked with a limp. Bert, who had not worked on the road for many years, was called out of the yard on his days off as there was a shortage of spare engineers available. His skills at the throttle on the road were a little rusty which became evident a little later on during our trip. At the booking out office we read our work assignment list, today was going to be a little different, as we had to make a side trip out on the Irricana Subdivision 27 miles down to the Alberta Wheat Pool Elevator at Tudor, we had about 100 empty boxcars for grain loading on the branch lines, we left Alyth at 10:05, and stopped at Shepard, to spot up the grain elevators and lift some empty sulfur tank cars for Wimborne. We then ran 10 miles over to Langdon to spot up the elevator track there, this is where I learned a valuable lesson about the slack action between the locomotive and the caboose on a 100 cars train, coming in to Langdon to slow down for the stop Bert used the locomotive independent air brake to slow the train down, rather than use the automatic train air brake which would have applied air brakes to each car on the train, between the couplers on each car is about 1 1/2 feet of slack, if you compound that by a 100 you get 150 feet of distance. I was sitting in the cupola on the leather covered horsehair seat cushion seat and back when I heard the sound of the slack gathering, so from going 30 miles an hour our speed was reduced to 5 miles an hour in an instant, the slack running in so violently that I had to hang on to the steel ladder to avoid being propelled out the front window of the cupola, when I was to experience next was the opposite, Bert had slowed down too much, so he released the brake and opened the throttle, and like cracking a whip, the 150 feet of slack ran out and I was driven back against the seat back cushion so hard that it physically knocked the wind out of me. This old wooden branch line caboose that was built around the turn of the century, had rigid couplers and drawbars. The modern steel mainline ones have spring-loaded shock absorbing draft gear that I was more used to; I was on my toes after that experience.

We did our usual chores stopping at Keoma, and Irricana spotting the elevator tracks, and switching out our train placing our caboose behind 10 empty boxcars for spotting on the Irricana Sub starting out at mileage 72.5., we then had our lunch at the local restaurant, and left for our trip to Tudor I rode on the lead locomotive as I had to help out further down the line, at one time this subdivision ran all the way down to Bassano on the Brooks Subdivision on the mainline, I referred to it earlier on my post of working the Zone 2 Wayfreight from Bassano to Standard. Just south of Tudor at mileage 44.9 there was an engineering problem with a sinkhole, every year dozens of cars of rock gravel ballast would be unloaded to keep track stable, when the mixed passenger service was discontinued in 1967 track was closed and the Wayfreight’s did all the work from both ends of the subdivision.

The track between Irricana and Tudor was so seldomley used that ranchers and farmers had leased parts of this right away for grazing cattle, and barbed wire fences were put up across the track to keep the cattle in, whenever the wayfreight was scheduled to make a trip the landowners were notified by car control in Medicine Hat ahead of time so that they could take down their fences down for the train to pass. We proceeded southward there with some snowdrifts as no trains had been through for a few weeks, they were not too deep, or long enough to cause us any concern about plowing through them. There wasn’t much left for communities on this stretch of railway at one time there were towns at Craigdhu mileage 67.8, Gayford mileage 62.5 and Hamlet mileage 50.8, all that remained was a siding at Nightingale mileage 54.9 and Tudor with its two Alberta Wheat Pool Elevators at mileage 45 5, leaving Nightingale we then approached a manual interlocking with the CNR at Dunshalt, this was the first time I had seen anything like this on my railway career I had read the following Timetable Special Instructions that stated “Railway crossing at grade with Canadian National Railways mileage 52.4 — Interlocking Signals will be operated by CPR trainmen and the left normally clear for CNR trains, Rule 605A does not apply.” I knew the by reading my rulebook that Rule 605A referred to flag protection not being required in interlocking limits, but the rest was all new to me. We brought our train to a stop at a manual interlocking single with the bottom aspect indicating stop, from here I have to walk about 500 yards up to a wooden tower to operate the signals as I walked along the track I could see steel bars mounted on concrete supports that were connected to the semaphore signals and ran to the tower. I reached the tower and climb up the rickety stairs to the door, there was a curved steel bar through the padlock staple that had two railway switch locks attached, one CPR, and the other CNR, I unlock the CPR one with my switch key and open the door. With the door open I entered the derelict tower there was snow all over the floor where it had drifted in, the windows are long gone and are all boarded up so the only illumination is from the daylight through the doorway, I am confronted with four large steel levers mounted to the floor, and under glass in a wooden frame on the wall were instructions for operating the interlocking, they were posted in 1930. The four levers were painted bright red, had unlocking handles at the back, and number plates from left to right painted in white 1, 2, 3, and 4. The way the signals were set always gave the CNR the right-of-way. The instructions stated for train movements by the CPR first unlock and pull to lever No.1 toward you this was to display stop signals on the CNR, what happened next scared the hell out of me, the open door violently closed shut and I was left in the darkness momentarily, there was enough light through the cracks in the boards over the window to allow me to see again, the next instruction was to unlock and pull lever No.3 by doing this a mechanical clock mechanism behind the lever started clicking and timed out for 3 min. with this done I was able to unlock and pull lever No.2 towards me, this gave our train a clear signal to proceed southward. Our engineer whistled twice and pulled lower train through the interlocking stopping the caboose just in the clear on the south side. My next step was to restore all the signals to the way they were when I entered the tower, by doing this a steel lever coming up through the floor opened allowing me to open the door and exit. This simple but ingenious method of making sure the signals were all restored to normal was probably thought out by the signal maintainers who probably got tired of being called out to restore signals by negligent CPR brakeman who have not followed the instructions. Of course the veteran crew had a good laugh at my expense, knowing beforehand about the towers locking mechanism, it was kind of a rite of passage for railway men.

One of the older engineers I knew told me at one time this tower and the automatic interlocking on the Langdon subdivision were both operated by local farmers and in the steam engine days they would blow whistle signals for the farmer/tower operator to come out and give them signals to pass. I was to find out later in my life one of my neighbours Dorothy Robinson where I grew up in South Calgary was raised on a farm at Dunshalt and her father William Gorman operated the tower from the time it was built circa 1914 until the Great Depression and the economic downturn forced the Railways to eliminate these jobs, and have the brakeman do the work. She gave me a postcard picture showing her father standing on top of the stairs in the doorway to the tower, it looks brand-new all freshly painted with all the windows in place levers visible through the glass, there are glass windows on the ground floor, and an access door for the maintainers, visible in front are the steel rods that operated the semaphore signals, and a chimney that at one time must have been connected to a stove that provided heat. It must’ve been a quite cozy and comfortable workplace, not like what I encountered 60 years later.

We returned to Irricana, picked up our train and continued on to Wimborne arriving at 20:30 and at 21:45 were off duty. Leaving the switching of the sulfur plant for the morning we started at 07:00 departed at 10:25 and arrived at East Coulee 17:50 and off duty 18:50 we went on duty at 07:00 and were off duty at 16:50 Alyth.

Photos:
1.) Approaching semaphore signal indicating stop at Dunshalt manual interlocking.
2.) Walking towards manual interlocking tower control rods alongside rail on right side.
3.) View of our train waiting for signal taken from interlocking time, CNR right-of-way to the left.
4.) Manual interlocking control levers inside tower, instructions posted on wall, snow on floor.
5.) Manual interlocking control levers set to stop for the CNR on lever No 1, and lever No. 3 timing out.
6.) View of interlocking tower and diamond where the tracks intersect taken from our caboose.
7.) Close-up view of tower that day in February 1974.
8.) Postcard photo of manual interlocking tower newly constructed 60 years before in 1914.

Once again the alarm clock rang at 06:00, after a good night’s sleep it was time to start another day, a good one as we were homeward bound. It was a good time to get a daylight view of the beautiful surroundings of a winter’s day in East Coulee a little history of this mining town in 1928 the first major mine opens in the area, 1930 population booms to over 3000 people, 1952 to 1959 natural gas replaces coal for heating homes and industries, most of the big mines close, and the community begins to dwindle. By 1970 it is virtually a ghost town, businesses have closed many of the houses are moved away the only mine operating in the Drumheller Valley is the Atlas mine accessible by the CPR East Coulee Railway/Highway wooden trestle across Red Deer River it was built in 1948. The CPR and CNR have an agreement for switching the Atlas mine, for six months of the year from the end October until 1 April CNR switches the mine, the CPR brings in our empties for loading and leaves them in the East Coulee yard, and we pick up our loads that have been set out for us by the CNR so this morning we have the loads, and have set out our empties, so we change ends on our locomotives, pick up our caboose and we are ready to go southbound on the Langdon subdivision caboose hop (a railway term meaning traveling with locomotives and caboose only) Fred phones the operator from the hotel at East Coulee to arrange for the operator at Drumheller to meet us at Rosedale Junction with train orders so we can enter the CNR joint section of track and travel back to Kneehill Junction to get back onto the Langdon subdivision. This is where the work for the day began with lifted loaded grain at Kirkpatrick, Hesketh, Sharples, and Carbon by this time we had 32 loads of grain to struggle up the grade at Kneehill Creek, next stop was at Acme where we had some lunch, then picked up all the loaded grain and the grain and sulfur traffic from the Acme Subdivision, then it was on to pick up at Beiseker, Irricana, Keoma, and Langdon by then we had a respectable train of about 80 loads.

Illustrations

1.) Waiting at Rosedale Junction to meet Drumheller operator and receiving our train orders to proceed to Kneehill.
2.) Stopping to register at Drumheller Station caboose hop, geographically pointed west but going east by timetable direction.
3.) Alberta Wheat Pool Elevator at Kirkpatrick our first stop to lift loaded grain.
4.) Alberta Pacific Grain elevator at Hesketh Alberta from the Unifarm Collection note the sectionmen’s tool house with the station name board, also loaded CPR boxcars ready to lift.
5.) Old postcard view of P&H elevator at Sharples, Alberta boxcars on spot and ready to be loaded, as you can see by the spout.
6.) Parrish and Heimbecker elevator at Sharples after it was abandoned.
7.) View of Sharples elevator looking back on our way to Carbon

Tuesday, February 19, 1974 after a night’s sleep the alarm clock rang at 06:00, by this time the caboose fire had gone out, and it was quite cold inside, with ice crystals forming on the walls from the condensation of our breath, we huddled under the warmth of our blankets, while Fred who was a hardened veteran, a lieutenant during World War II in Italy from what I understand, he was up right away in his shorts getting the caboose stove going with the kindling I had left out last night, with the fire lit he proceeded to get the kettle boiling, and the coffee on, me and the other brakeman reluctantly got out of our beds, made them up, got dressed and washed up for breakfast, that Fred made for us it included burnt toast, jam, and coffee, I always carried oatmeal in my grip so I made myself a bowl with some raisins and milk to tide me over until lunch. Vince was up cooking his own breakfast in his bunkhouse, after we finished, we got out our switch lists and started switching the elevator track at Wimborne, and building our train on the mainline, we tied onto the grain loads at the elevators, and coupled onto the empties we have left on the north end yesterday and pulled them down to spot, we than coupled the loads of grain to our loaded sulfur tank’s we had left in the siding last night and doubled them over to the mainline with our caboose, we then performed a break test, and Fred telephoned car control in Medicine Hat from the engineer’s bunkhouse for any new information, and changes to our switch lists. With this done we departed Wimborne at 09:00, I did the kitchen chores of washing the dishes, and we lifted grain loads and respoting the elevator tracks at Torrington, Allingham, Sunnyslope, and Linden arriving at Cosway Junction around 11:45, we than pulled our train down to Acme, and set our train over to the siding, switched out the loads from the elevator track and respoted the empties that we had set over to the north end yesterday, we then ran 8833 back to the north end and marshalled our caboose and traffic for the Langdon Subdivision, we always had to be careful in Acme is there was a private crossing to a farm located in the middle of the yard, so we always had to make sure that this crossing was not blocked with our cars, I remember the farmers had a pet peacock that was always around showing off his feathers, and making sure everybody understood that this was his territory. Such are the sites one sees working in these pastoral parts of the countryside. With the work done we went to town for a good home-cooked lunch at Lucy’s Café. The CPR reached Acme in 1909, and it was named for the Greek word Acme which means highest point, the community had a population of about 600 at that time, the local butcher shop sold the best Canadian back bacon I have ever had, and we would literally bring home the bacon on our return trip, after lunch we departed Acme, stopping to register at Cosway and proceeded for our descent down along the Kneehill Creek.

The next station was Entice at Mile 52.2, 10.5 miles North of Cosway my timetable but geographically east, Entice once had an elevator, and a roadmasters house, but was now abandoned; the elevator track was still in place and held 40 storage cars. The next station was at Mile 58.0 Carbon a community of 500 residents, named after the coal mining region that started there and ran towards Drumheller, Alberta in the Badlands, there were four big elevators an Alberta Wheat Pool, a Pioneer, an United Grain Growers, and another Alberta Wheat Pool, we spotted them 12 empties, there was also a siding filled with 44 open top hopper cars, next stop was Mile 62.8 Sharples that had one Parish and Heimbeker elevator that we gave five empties. next up was Mile 67.2 Hesketh with two Alberta Wheat Pool elevators that we spotted eight empties, at mile 70.1 Gatine there was an abandoned Alberta Wheat Pool elevator and the backtrack was filled with more storage cars, next at Mile 73.0 was Dunphy that was abandoned, at mile 74.8 Kirkpatrick was a single Alberta Wheat Pool elevator that we spotted five empties next up was mile 77.2 Nacmine that stood for North American Collieries Mine were a large coal mine was located, most of the tracks were filled with storage cars, we stopped there with the caboose alongside the hotel across the highway, and Fred went over to telephone the CNR operator at Drumheller to get permission for us to come out on to the junction at Mile 78.7 Kneehill and to proceed on the CNR Drumheller subdivision to the station at Mile 80.8 Drumheller at the time CNR was still running dayliner passenger service between Drumheller and Edmonton, and the only other scheduled freight train ran in the evening. the operator at Drumheller gave Fred verbal permission to enter the main track.

The railway was originally built by the Canadian Northern and ran east from Hanna near the Saskatchewan border to Calgary, Alberta they entered Drumheller at Kneehill and ran geographically eastward through Drumheller, and went westward after leaving Rosedale Junction, the CPR and CNOR worked out a joint agreement for sharing trackage between Kneehill and East Coulee and we operated on Canadian National Railways timetable and train order authority between Kneehill Rosedale Junction. This was real dinosaur country and Drumheller hosts the home of the world-famous Royal Tyrell Museum of Palaeontology, between 1911 and 1979 139 mines were registered in the Drumheller Valley, the Sub bituminous coal mined there was ideal for domestic heating and cooking fuel, and it provided work for many miners who came to the valley from Eastern Europe, Britain, and Nova Scotia. We stopped at the Drumheller station to register our train and receive train orders to run on the CNR down West to the next station at. Mile 85.8 Rosedale this was a junction, where we left the CNR and returned to the Langdon Subdivision next station was. Mile 89.4 Willow Creek an abandoned siding, and finally our terminal at Mile 94.3 East Coulee where the Atlas Mine the last operating coal mine in the Drumheller Valley was still in operation, it was located across a wooden trestle on the south side of the Red Deer River, there was a large yard with the capacity of 600 cars, and many of the tracks were filled with storage cars, there was an abandoned station, turntable, and Atco bunkhouse for the locomotive engineer this was all located on the north end of the yard, and the track continued on to the Rosemary Subdivision that ran down towards the Bassano Subdivision, although the track was only opened to the town of Finnegan at this time. We switched out our train, it had been a long day and we were off-duty at 22:35.
Illustrations 1.) Photo of mine tipple at Nacmine, Alberta taken by Walter Kot in the late 1960s 2.) Photo of CNR Drumheller station, the original passenger station had been torn down, and the train order signal and office was moved to the freight shed, this is where we registered our train, and received our train orders to proceed to Rosedale Junction. 3.) Heritage photo of Rosedale Star mine and suspension bridge over Red Deer River 4.) Steel trestle crossing Red Deer River on Langdon Subdivision. 5.) Mile 90 Langdon Subdivision. 6.) South end of yard East Coulee showing loading platform and yard tracks with storage cars. 7.) North end of yard and station at East Coulee track on left-hand side leads to turntable, and lead to Atlas mine. 8.) Heritage photo mine tipple at East Coulee.

On my return to Alyth on the Saturday, I phoned the crew clerk in Medicine Hat about arranging a dead head back to the home terminal, he said you may as well stay where you are as you have been placed as the tail end brakeman on the Zone 3 Wayfreight starting Monday morning, this came as a surprise to me, but I can understand why none of the senior men working the spare board wanted this position as it was away from their home in Medicine Hat, and the assignment worked six days a week. That was all right with me being back in my home in Calgary, and would have every night in bed, so on Monday, February 18, 1974 I was called for 06:00 my conductor was Fred Foulston, an old-timer who hired on in 1944, he was a portly man, wore glasses, and was balding with a handlebar mustache. The engineer was Vince Griffiths, who I had worked before with on an Empress Turn in December, we had the 8833 for a lead unit, and the head end brakeman was a spare man deadheaded up from Medicine Hat his name I don’t recall. At the General Yard Office I checked the bulletin book, compared my watch with the standard clock, and got my portable radio and did a radio check outside the building, with this finished we called the crew bus. The CPR had crew buses on duty 24 hours a day, their sole purpose was to taxi train crews to and from their training for departures and arrivals, and to give any other jobs such as take paperwork from the main control tower to trains, and the other control towers in the terminal. Fred and I rode the crew bus down to the tail end of our train in V-4,   in order to find our caboose in this multitude of railway tracks, we had a system on our assigned caboose, sticking up from the cupola in the center one of the crew members had nailed up a wooden grain door, and on top of this year had fastened an empty 5 gallon pail, painted red. In order to find the caboose, all one had to do was climb up the ladder on one of the adjacent tracks near the roadway and look across until he could see the 5 gallon pail sitting above all the other cars in the yard, then we got the crew bus to drive closer and  we cut across through the yard tracks loaded our grip’s onto the caboose after unlocking it, Fred said that he would ride the crew bus up to the head end and give them their orders and paperwork and would probably ride over with them to Shepard the first station east of Calgary.

Fred told me to get things prepared for our trip, this included getting a fire going in the caboose stove, boil a kettle of water, along making a pot of coffee pot, one of the seat bunks nearest to the stove was filled with domestic heating coal, and some scraps of lumber and a hatchet, I cut some of the lumber with a hatchet to make kindling, and shook out the grates in the stove to dump the ashes from the last fire into the ash pan underneath this I took outside and dumped along the tracks, I built up a tee pee of kindling with some bunched up newspaper underneath on the stove’s grates, this I saturated with kerosene from one of the storage lockers, I lit a match to get the fire started, in the meantime I went to the storage locker and pulled out our two kerosene caboose markers, checked their fuel tanks and topped them up with the kerosene, and hung them on the brackets at the tail end of the caboose making sure they displayed red to the rear,  I then checked the fuel level in the kerosene powered CPR Coleman lantern above the conductor’s table, and topped it up, this was our prime source of light in the evening. I swept the floor, and checked to see that the water containers were properly filled, we had three containers, one above the sink, and two others of the floor, as we were gone for three days each trip, it was necessary to have lots of water for cooking, and washing,  I made sure we had enough supplies for the flagging kit, if anything was missing I would radio the Car Department Planner and let them know of any shortages, and a Carmen would soon come along  to rectify the situation. The caboose was supplied with its own radio that was hooked up to an antenna on the roof that gave it a range of about 7 to 8 miles, and I heard the head end coupling on, I did a radio check with them, then went and checked the fire it was burning nicely, so I added some coal which I had to break up from the large lumps that were in the coal locker, using a 3 pound hammer. I watched the air gauges near the conductor’s table and saw that the air pressure was starting to rise, one of the carmen climbed on the caboose to monitor the air pressure, this was different than Swift Current where the brakemen were required to make their own brake tests, as Alyth was classed as an “A” class yard, carmen were required to do all this work. When the air pressure had risen sufficiently the carman called the head end, said there was 75 pounds pressure on the caboose and that it was okay to set up the brakes, he then left the caboose to walk the train, his counterpart on the head end started from that direction, when they met half way he called the engineer and told him to release the brakes, he returned to the caboose and radioed the head end carman to confirm that all the air brakes had released, with this confirmation that we were okay on our brake test in V-4 with 68 cars the head end carman filled out the paperwork for the locomotive engineer showing that we had a No. 1 brake test at Alyth, with this done we are ready to depart East, the head end  contacted me to make sure I was ready to go, and called the Pulldown supervisor asking for a route out of the yard, and contacted 12 Street Tower saying that we were okay to go East, 12 Street Tower said he had a westbound coming in, the Pulldown supervisor told us to go out the New Ogden lead and crossover to P-2 and away we went.

I radioed my head end when we were clear of the crossover on P-2 at Ogden, and Vince opened the throttle to get up to track speed and get over to Shepard our first stop. We entered the CTC siding at Shepard and went down to the east end, where we had some work to do, there was a second siding that held 32 cars, and the elevator track about the same length, the head end brakeman had cut off five empty boxcars for spotting at the Alberta Wheat Pool elevators, by the time he was backing up, I had walked up to spot three cars at the west end elevator, he put on the hand brake while I did the spotting, we then pulled ahead to the east end elevator made the spot, then lifted some empty sulfur tank cars from the second siding, Fred was on the phone in the tool house on the north side talking to the dispatcher telling him we were ready to leave for the Strathmore Subdivision that started at Mile 45.2, we received a signal and pulled our train across the level crossing and about 10 cars east was the junction switch, Fred and I stood by the switch on each side watching our train as it pulled by I gave Vince car lengths and slowed him down enough for Fred to board the caboose I realigned the main track switch and ran to catch the caboose, and away we went at 30 miles an hour to our next stop at Langdon Mile 34.8 a distance of 10 miles, there was a storage track at Bennett halfway at Mile 38.9 that had 50 open top hopper cars stored there awaiting to be repaired at Ogden. The Strathmore Subdivision was part of the original CPR mainline from Medicine Hat to Calgary, General R.B. Langdon of Minneapolis and D.C. Shepard of St. Paul, Minnesota were contractors who built the original mainline between Winnipeg and Calgary in 1882, on July 28, 1883 the two contractors laid 6.38 miles of track in one day near Strathmore a record for the building of the railway, and the two communities were named after them, westbound passenger and second-class freight trains used to run on the subdivision until 1963 when it wants then downgraded to a branch line operation. We arrived at Langdon and had a bit of switching to do, we have five empties to spot in the elevator track, but the problem was the siding was filled with storage cars, so in order to get into the elevator track the head end brakeman had to stop short at the east end, go in to the siding and pick up about 30 storage cards in order to access the elevator track he then had to couple back onto our train and grab five empties for spotting, by that time I had walked up to make the spot, and coupled storage cars back onto the siding, we walked up to the locomotives, and coupled back onto our train, I was going to ride the head end to help do some of the spotting on our next destination the Langdon Subdivision.

The junction switch for the Langdon Subdivision is located just east of Langdon at Mile 33.60 and our timetable special instructions read “Position of the junction switch mileage 33.60 Strathmore Subdivision where Langdon Subdivision joins at Langdon is normal when lined for the Langdon Subdivision” this was implemented when the Strathmore Sub. was relegated as a branch line, and more traffic ran up the Langdon subdivision then the Strathmore line as that portion was seldom used, and the track was closed due to engineering problems of a sinkhole 6 miles west of Gleichen we proceeded northward across the Trans-Canada Highway that was pretty scary as there was lots of traffic and only bells and lights to alert drivers of this sparsely ran railway operation. We then approached an Automatic Interlocking at Grade Mile 9.1 this was where the CNR Drumheller Subdivision crossed our track traffic was governed by whatever train arrived first, there was an approach signal about 1 mile from the crossing would turn yellow if another train was approaching, and we would have to stop at a red signal adjacent to the crossing, that was also called a diamond due to the shape of where the two tracks crossed, at mile 12.4 Delroy an elevator track with an abandoned Alberta Wheat Pool elevator, next stop was Mile 18.5 Keoma where we spotted 7 cars at the single Alberta Wheat Pool elevator Mile 26.2, next up was Irricana Mile 31.5 here there was a long siding filled with storage cars, CPR at that time had many cars that were surplus, automobile carrying boxcars that we’re obsolete, replaced with newer bi-level and tri-levels, hundreds of grain box cars that the CPR had no intention of repairing as there was no money to be made due to the obsolete Crowsnest Agreement made in the early 1900’s, and other cars waiting disposition for repair or scrapping, as I was to find out, every siding and unused yard track on this subdivision was used for their storage there must’ve been 1200 cars, we spotted 6 cars at the two elevators, there was also another elevator west side of our track, it was serviced by the CNR on their Three Hills Subdivision they also serviced our next stop at Beiseker Mile 39.8 but on the east side of the community, they crossed over top of our track halfway between Irricana and Beiseker, we had, a fertilizer business, two Alberta Wheat Pool, and a Parrish & Heimbeker elevator on the south end, along with a platform for unloading farm machinery. Last stop was Mile 39.5 Acme that had 6 elevators three Alberta Wheat Pool, two Pioneer, and a United Grain Growers, along with a 40 car siding that was always kept clear for switching, when we finished servicing the elevator track we stopped for an hour to have lunch, we went down Main Street to a restaurant called Lucy’s, where a jovial elderly lady who ran the place served really good home cooked meals. After lunch we marshalled our train and left northward for Mile 41.7 Cosway a junction with the Acme Subdivision, here there was a wye to turn cars and locomotives, and the register station for the conductor to enter the time we left the Langdon and entered the Acme Subdivision.

The Acme Sub. ran 27.3 miles to the town Wimborne, this was the last branch line built by the CPR in 1932, originally it was supposed to run to Red Deer, Alberta but with the Great Depression track laying stop at Wimborne, with the petrochemical business growing in the 1950s a 2.72 spur of track was built  this was called the Meers Spur after a local rancher Jim Meers whose land the track ran on  The petrochemical industry in Alberta produces natural gas, propane, and butane, these gases have many impurities including sulfur, this is extracted and stock piled in solid form at many plants around the province. Some of the product is shipped in bulk by railway in special open top hopper cars, and some of the sulfur is liquefied, its melting point is 115.21°C or 239.38°F at this temperature it can be loaded into special tank cars manufactured by CGTX which stands for Canadian General Transit Co.Ltd. it also owns GATX  the Rail Canada Corp. UTLX is the reporting mark for the Union Tank Car Company based in Chicago Illinois, where it has been in business hundred and 20 years these companies specialize in the manufacturing, repairing, and leasing of tank cars to the railway industry. The liquefied sulfur loading cars weigh 35 tons empty, and are loaded with 100 tons of liquid sulfur, the cars are heavily insulated, and contain coils of piping that steam can be circulated through to melt any of the product that solidifies in transit.  The Shell plant loaded tank cars of liquid sulfur, and we switched them twice a week. Leaving Cosway our first stop was at Mile 5.8 town of Linden, this was a Mennonite community where they had a thriving business building farm machinery, there was one Alberta Wheat Pool elevator where we spotted 3 cars, next stop was Mile 10.5 Sunnyslope, with 2 Alberta Wheat Pool elevators where we dropped off 4 cars, one on the south end, and 3 at the elevator on the north end. we then carried on to Mile 14.4 Allingham were we spotted 1 car at the lone Alberta Wheat Pool elevator, then it was onto Mile 20.8 Torrington with its elevator row of 6, three Alberta Wheat Pool, two Pioneer, and one United Grain Growers, we gave them 10 cars, we arrived at our terminus Wimborne at 16:35, we spotted cars into the elevator track, and picked up the tanks we needed, leaving our caboose at Wimborne, then proceeded to the spur to give the Shell  Petrochemical Plant a switch, this was a typical setup for switching petroleum plants, there was a runaround track below the plants gates, we cut-off our empties,  and proceeded to the gate and got our switch list out of the bill box attached to the gate, we open the gates and took off to derail, checked for blue flags, and coupled the to the loads of liquid sulfur that were sitting on the Tank loading track to our left was the North bulk loading spur, where there were some empties, and loads waiting disposition, our list told us what cars that were released to go, and the ones from the loading track that were to hold as they had No bills, we were also asked to spot first out any CGTX  on the Tank loading track. We spent half an hour switching these out, then lined ourselves for the runaround track going down to the south end lining the switch, and coupling onto our empties, we then coupled on to the cars remaining in the loading track, and shoved them up to a spot where the loaders could access the first two cars from their loading platforms, there was quite a grade southwards, so the loaders have no problem rolling them down towards the derail using gravity, and securing the loads with a handbrake, with this work finished we headed back to Wimborne, shoved the loads into the siding and retired to the caboose for an evening’s rest, Fred, the head end brakeman, and I stayed in the caboose, Fred used the bed beside his table, the mattresses and bedding for us was piled on top of the other fold down bench seat by the door. The bedding was first class linen sheets, and warm CPR wool blankets, that became surplus when CPR discontinued many passenger trains in 1967, and we received freshly laundered bedding every week. We folded down the seat back beside the stove along the outer wall, and placed the head end brakeman’s mattress and bedding on top, being the senior man on the crew I slept closer to the door, while the junior man was closer to the stove, which was pretty hot at night. I had prepared kindling for the fire in the morning, filled the coal scuttle, and had banked the fire to keep us warm through most of the night. Vince the engineer had a small bunkhouse the same as a sectionmen’s accommodations, with two-bedrooms, from the days when there was a fireman, a small kitchen and living area with an oil heater, it was located between the legs of the wye, and had an outhouse about 30 feet behind it, it also had a telephone that the conductor would use to call car control in Medicine Hat when we tied up, for any additional instructions.

Illustrations, 1.)CPR 1973 timetable system map shows the Brooks Subdivision as No.4, Strathmore Subdivision as No.20, Langdon Subdivision as No.13, and Acme Subdivision as No.1. And h. the Meers spur. 2.) Photo of interior of caboose showing coal stove, water tanks and sink, aluminum dipper hanging on wall for getting washing water out of the water tanks on the floor, a kerosene lantern for light at night, and storage cupboard for groceries, my parka hanging on the left-hand side.also visible is the red chord for the emergency brake valve that runs along the roof to the cupola.  3.) Photo of our caboose CP 437169, with markers hung out, notice 5 gallon pail sitting on top of grain door board, an aide to finding caboose in the sea of railway cars in the yard. 4.) Photo taken from caboose crossing Bow River leaving Alyth yard CNR Highline trestle visible past telephone pole. 5.) Elevator track at Shepard empty grain loading hopper cars in second siding, CTC eastbound signal on the left, two sectionmen’s tool houses on right, Conductor Foulston used the closest one to phone Brooks Sub dispatcher. 6.) Shepard elevators, level crossing, and junction switch to the Strathmore Subdivision on the right-hand side. 7.) CNR train approaching Automatic Interlocking at Mile 9.1 Langdon subdivision. 8.) One empty grain box car spotted at Alberta Wheat Pool Elevator at Allingham on the Acme Subdivision. 9.) Shell sulfur plant at sunset on Meers spur. 10.) Photo of typical liquid sulphur loading facility, pile of solid sulphur in background, with bulk loading gondola railcars behind tank cars, 11.) View of other end of caboose showing conductors table, with Coleman lamp, and bed, the fold-down bunk in front of the other brakemen’s bedding, this bunk held the coal for the  caboose stove’s fire, also visible above the conductor’s bed is his parka and towels, there is a red cord running along the roof to the outside platform of the caboose, this also runs down to the other platform, and it’s tied to to the conductor’s emergency valve in the cupola, this is an safety feature so the train could be placed into emergency braking from any position in the caboose by a crew member pulling on the cord. Above the brakemen’s bedding is a black metal first aid kit, and a red flagging kit, above the right window is an emergency stretcher folded up.

Trip two on the Zone 2 Wayfreight February 15, 1974, we were ordered out of Alyth at 08:45 with Charlie Mock as the conductor, as John was off for miles, we had a spare brakeman who I let work the tailend, as I preferred working on the headend, the day went much the same as Wednesday’s trip east, spotting elevators and, switching cars at Shepard, Bassano, and Brooks we worked a little longer that day having to make a quick trip 14 miles east to Mile 52.9 at Tilly to service the Alberta Wheat Pool elevators not tieing up until 21:45, Saturday was a different situation, this assignment worked six days a week and Saturday was the day to get home as early as we could as the weekend at home were short enough as it was. We went to work at 06:45 after a quick breakfast we did the necessary switching at Brooks and were out of their by 08:30 we were traveling very light with just a small train and were back at Alyth and off duty at 11:45

I enjoyed my four days working this assignment, it was quite exciting and more fast-paced than working the branch lines in Saskatchewan, where there were only two trains involved, this was high-speed mainline railroading, you really have to be on your toes watching out for the schedule’s of the many priority trains and passengers on this busy fast subdivision, with all its work to do between the 104.3 miles from Ogden to Brooks, of course the idea of having these mainline Wayfreight’s was to alleviate through freights from having to do these tasks and delaying operations on the subdivision, the pay was very good, we were paid for the actual miles run, plus all time spent switching at junctions, and turnaround points at a rate of 12.5 mph, so all time at Shepard which was a junction with the Strathmore Sub, Gleichen where the Strathmore Subdivision joined the Brooks Sub, Bassano that was a junction with the Irricana, and Bassano Subdivisions, and Brooks that was our home away terminal, and Tilly that was a turnaround point.