I was off duty at Field, British Columbia waiting to be called for an eastbound. I had my camera with me and took the Opportunity to take some pictures of Field
1.) An eastbound train sitting in track one at Field, it’s probably waiting for a crew to be called. To the right a good view of CPR’s Field station built in 1953-54. It is a small international style railway station and it is located in Yoho National Park, at the foot of the old Big Hill that was a real operating problem when the CPR started full service in 1887 and it took until the Spiral Tunnels that were built in 1908, to eliminate the need of safety switches and runoffs. The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) Station at Field was built as part of the companies aggressive postwar modernization, which included conversion to diesel power, purchasing new rolling stock, and introduction of the new “Canadian” passenger service. The railway station is the most significant visual link to Field’s role as a divisional point, crew change site and locomotive service centre for the ‘pusher’ steam locomotives that provided service service through the Kicking Horse Pass and from Lake Louise west. The Field Station was named after Cyrus Field the builder of the Trans-Atlantic cable. The Field station is one of the few remaining buildings in the once major railway complex located at Field. It retains its relationship with the surviving tracks to the south, the oil tower to the Southeast, and the telegraphers building and the CPR train crew rest house. The pipes east of the concrete station pad were for watering the passenger diesel engines, that were equipped with steam generators.
2.) This view shows the 5719 leading the eastbound train of empty sulphur, and grain hoppers. Also visible is the railway turntable, and the remains of the railway roundhouse.
3.) This is a better view of the round house with its smokestack from its boiler room. There are many sets of wheels sitting on the bays of the old roundhouse. Visible between the trees is the green roofed bunkhouse for passenger crews, locomotive engineers, conductors, and trainmen. It had a lunch counter, kitchen, and lockers that crews could leave their personal items there. There was a blackboard with the room numbers, you would mark your name on a cleaned room. when you were called for a train the operator at Field would fill out a call slip, and one of the bunkhouse attendants on would knock on your door, and would slip your call slip under the door. It would have the train you were called for, along with the locomotives in your consist. Crews would go to the station, book out on the train register book, and they could compare their railway pocket watch, or wristwatch with the Seth Thomas No. 17 Regulator, this clock had a card that showed how many seconds it was running Fast or Slow. I used a Hamilton 16 size, 21 jewel, Grade 992B pocket watch. One interesting feature of the Seth Thomas No. 17 Regulator was that it had two hour hands one was blue, and the other was red the blue hands were for the Laggan Sub Crews who worked on Mountain time. And red one was for the Mountain Sub Crews who change to Pacific Time when they went through Golden 30 miles west of Field. Revelstoke engine crews, conductors, and trainmen were required to have the double hands on their pocket watches, or wristwatches.
4.) Three of my collection of Seth Thomas Railway Clocks, the one on the left is a Seth Thomas No. 17 weight regulator. It came out of Fort William in 1967 it was same as the one in the station in Field, B.C. without the second red hour hand. The one in middle is a Seth Thomas World and is spring driven and will run 14 days. The first two clocks were used on the CPR you can see the Comparison Cards the first one has CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY, the Comparison Card underneath the World is marked Canadian Pacific in red. Finally the one on the right is a Seth Thomas No. 2 weight regulator, it was made for the Ball Watch Co. Cleveland, Ohio. It came out of the Station of McBride British Columbia.
My Hamilton 16 size, 21 jewel, Grade 992B Serial C 218 Manufactured 1948, it has a porcelain double sunk dial. The watch case is a Hamilton Grade 11 a yellow gold filled case. My Hamilton 16 size, 21 jewel, Serial Number C 241263 Movement Manufactured in 1948. The movement is marked: Hamilton Watch Co. 992B 21 Jewels ADJ TEMP AND 6 POSITIONS It is cased in a Model 11 yellow gold filled case. The balance wheel, and hairspring are made of Elnvar and it is a nickel-iron-chromium alloy notable for having a modulus of elasticity which does not change much with temperature changes. The name is a contraction of the French elastici’e (elastically invariable). It was invented by Charles Edourd Gulllaum, a Swiss physicist who also invented Invar, another alloy of nickel and iron with a very low thermal expansion. Gullaume when the 1920 Nobel Prize in physics for these discoveries, which shows how important these alloys were were scientific instruments. Where it says and “six positions” that refers to the watches timekeeping in six positions dial face up, dial face down, winding pendant pointing up, pointing left, pointing right, and pendant pointing down. The largest use of elinvar was in balance spring for mechanical watches and chronometers.
5.) This is a view of the yard tracks in Field on the right-hand side is Field’s Auxiliary Crane and the coaches that the cables, ropes, and slings were kept, there is also boarding cars were the Auxiliary Crew could sleep, along with a kitchen. There are three snowplows, and two cabooses the one on the left side of the picture is more modern one, the other one is much older with its Coppola on the right end. I see our eastbound train is leaving Field.
6.) I see that the caboose on the eastbound train has stopped to change the tail end crew, a conductor and brakeman. This would soon be changed with the elimination of the tail end brakeman’s position, this happened in the summer of 1979. The next class of the locomotive engineers were all senior to me on the Conductors and Trainman’s. Seniority List. But were all junior from me as locomotive engineers.
7.) Field British Columbia, looking westward you can see beehives in the foreground, and a house with a sloped roof to facilitate snow removal.