Canadian Northern Society
P.O.
Box 142, Big Valley, Alberta T0J 0G0
Dominion of Canada
Telephone: +1 403 876 2242
|
Canadian Northern Society
P.O.
Box 142, Big Valley, Alberta T0J 0G0
Dominion of Canada
Telephone: +1 403 876 2242
|
Thank you to Harry R. J. Home of Jasper, and to Finn and M. C. Didrichsen of Stettler for their generous cash donations to the society received with their annual membership renewals.
Thank you to Karen Sledz for her donation of the 1940s-era framed photograph of His Majesty King George VI working in his office, now on display in the street-side entryway of Big Valley station. Thanks also to Karen for the donation of the colour television set to be used for interpretive videos at Meeting Creek.
Thank you to Lorrie Tiegs for her valuable assistance in preparing and organizing the printing of the society membership cards, designing new colour postcards for the Camrose and Big Valley sites, and continued assistance with graphic design and printing of society publications such as the promotional brochures.
Thank you to Leslie S. Kozma and Tim and Nancy Mugford for their generous cash donations received with membership renewals.
Thank you to Robbie O’Riordan for the donation of three books and various train magazines to the archives.
Thank you to Shawn Smith for his donation of the book Railway Stations, Masterpieces of Architecture.
Thank you to Dan Paluk and Hugh Campbell for their donations of regulation books to our archives.
Join us for the annual Canadian Northern Night. This year it is being held on February 23, 2002, at the Seniors’ Centre in Big Valley. The evening will start around 16:00 with a pot-luck supper at 17:00. Presentations to follow supper.
We welcome the following new members to the society:
The Canadian Northern Society reminds all of its members to support your society by sending your membership renewal (see address at top of this page). Memberships remain $20 for full memberships and $10 for associate.
Your contributions through purchasing of member-ships are of vital importance to the society and help keep our programs going.
Congratulations, Big Valley, on winning four out of five blooms in national Communities in Bloom for 2001. A special mention for the honour was the railway heritage preserved by the two societies: the Big Valley Historical Society and the Canadian Northern Society.
In December 2001, the Canadian Northern Society supported the Big Valley Children’s Christmas Party by way of a $25 cash donation and supported Big Valley Communities in Bloom by covering the costs ($337) of modification to several flag poles located in the Village to prevent further theft and vandalism. These community donations were recent contributions to the Mackenzie and Mann Community Fund.
1827 (175 years ago): The Rideau Canal Tramway, just under a mile long, is built at Bytown, now Ottawa, from a stone quarry near Hog’s Back to transport stone for the locks and weirs on the Rideau Canal.
The Camrose committee has made several applications for funding, with mixed results. We were unsuccessful in our application for funding from Alberta Lotteries, but we will reapply in May for funding for a portable dance floor. We have also applied to the Royal Canadian Legion, Wal-Mart and the Royal Bank Employees’ Fund but never received an acknowledgement of our letters. Our application for the toolhouse and watchman’s shed restoration from Historic Resources is also pending approval. We have received approval on our application to the Wildrose Antique Collectors for funding of the Camrose operator’s office flooring and Meeting Creek elevator displays.
Last summer’s fund-raising was a success for us. We received $550 in buy-a-tie through visitors to the station. Gwyn Morgan and Pat Trottier donated $1000, which helped us complete the roof restoration on the station and expand the gardens at the south end.
We have been collecting and compiling biographies of workers who were part of the Camrose railway industry. So far we have stories of Hugh Campbell (maintenance of way), Ray Johnson (the last agent-operator in Camrose), and T. P. Murphy (telegrapher). We are featuring Walter Kittler from Mirror, Alberta in our Salute to the Conductor this year. He is in the process of writing his autobiography. This is exciting as it makes the history come alive. We will be approaching the drama class at Augustana University College to write a melodrama about railway life and presenting it at the garden party. We will also be developing short interpretive skits on these workers’ lives or lives of railway characters.
The tearoom’s theme for 2002 is Canadiana food. We will have traditional early-Canada food from each province. The society’s library and archives have been extensively reorganized. The storage system has been improved, our assets have been entered into a database, and most acquisitions are labelled and accounted for. Thank-you letters are sent to all donors as acquisitions come in. We had a visit from an Archives of Alberta representative on December 10, 2001 for a free assessment. Our main concern was the old Grand Trunk and Canadian Northern paper items. The recommendation was to store them in acid-free file folders and Mylar for some items.
The station will be holding a Saint Patrick’s Day supper. Please contact the station at +1 780 672 3099 for more information.
A new photograph and artifact display has been appropriately established in our Meeting Creek railway station. Located in the north track-side bedroom on the second storey of the building, the display features selected specially mounted photographs and prints of classic prairie grain elevators, related artifacts and collectables. Looking out the second-floor track-side window visitors have an excellent view of our Alberta Pacific Grain elevator and the now-privately-owned Alberta Wheat Pool elevator. We hope to be able to add some historical photographs to the display over the next year. We believe the Guardians of the Prairie exhibit has enhanced the interpretation of our own Meeting Creek elevator—now a provincial registered historic resource—and will allow for cold weather protection for some of the grain elevator artifacts in the collection that were formerly on display in the unheated elevator office.
Thank you to Les Kozma, S.I. Smith, Tim Mugford and Karen Sledz for their contributions to the production of the display.
1832, February 25 (170 years ago): Incorporation of the Champlain and St. Lawrence Railroad to build from Dorchester, now Saint-Jean, to a point on the St. Lawrence River at or near Laprairie. This is the first Canadian railroad charter.
Alberta Prairie Railway Excursions has released its summer 2002
schedule. Vintage steam locomotives 41 and CN 6060 will be back handling excursion trains from
Stettler to Big Valley and return. The season kicks off with an APST Limited
Excursion on Saturday, May 18. Various themed specials are featured
throughout the season. To receive a copy of this year’s schedule
contact Alberta Prairie Railway Excursions, P.O. Box 1600, Stettler, AB TOC 2L0 +1 403 742 2811, fax
+1 403 742 2844, e-mail
<info@absteamtrain.com>. Alberta Prairie has a Web
site.
The Canadian Northern Society recognizes the support of Mr. Don Gillespie and the entire management and staff of Alberta Prairie Railway Excursions in promoting the village of Big Valley and its many heritage attractions, and in helping us maintain these sites each year.
The CNR was the forerunner of a new type of motive power dating back to the mid-twenties. Behind this accomplishment was the then-president of the CNR, S. J. Hungerford, and chief of Motive Power, C. E. Brooks, who had journeyed to Sweden and to Russia earlier to inspect their newly designed and built diesel-powered locomotives, but found them too bulky, inefficient, and unreliable for service in Canada. In 1923 he inspected a light-weight diesel engine at the William Beardmore Shops in Glasgow—one that was developed for use in the R-101 airship. Noticing the potential for conversion to railway motive power, the engine was bought and shipped to Canada.
From this beginning came the first self-propelled car in North America: Number 15820. On its trial run November 1, 1925, Number 15820 ran from Montréal to Vancouver, a total of 2937 mi (4727 km) in 67 h without stopping the engine. With this success, a more powerful and enlarged version of the 200 hp (150 kW) engine was proposed resulting in a 1330 hp (990 kW) Beardmore engine in a fully independent power unit. The engine was not supercharged, although it was designed and tested with one. The noise from the gearing prohibited its use and so the engine, with a 12 in (0.30 m) bore and a 12 in stroke running at 800 r/min developed only 1330 hp instead of the desired 2000 hp (1.5 MW).
Under the
co-operation of the W. Beardmore Company, the CNR, Westinghouse Company, Canadian
Locomotive Works, Kingston and Commonwealth Steel Company, Number 9000
was born. Her inaugural run was November 28, 1928, three years after
the successful trip of Number 15820 and exactly 101 years after the
Rocket startled the English countryside. She went from
Kingston to Belleville (48 mi, 77 km) with a business car, a dynometer car, and
a caboose. The following morning, its test run took 45 loads in
freight service 222 mi (357 km) to Turcot Yard in Montréal.
She went into service the first week in December 1928 and ran in passenger service between Toronto and London. The second unit was delivered later that month and on arrival in Montréal was coupled with Number 9000 to be known as the V-1-a class. At first Number 9000 was shown on both units but later Number 9001 got its own number plate and painting and often ran independently. In August 1929 the articulated units were assigned to Number 5, the second section of the International Limited between Montréal and Toronto, and remained there until the end of 1931. On October 17, 1939, the units were retired.
In 1941 Number
9000 was commissioned by the Dominion government and rebuilt at
Transcona Shops to represent a camouflaged boxcar. At this time, the
Beardmore engine was replaced with an EMD 16-567A marine engine
because of the difficulty in getting parts for the former. It served
as a power unit in British Columbia at the time a Japanese invasion
was a threat and pulled an armoured train.
This latter role for Number 9000 was a well-kept secret to almost everyone—even to us working at Calder during the war. It must have gone through Edmonton on its return when the invasion threat diminished in 1944, but we didn’t hear of it. Number 9000 was given back to the CNR, its shroud removed, and the units put back into service between Québec and Edmundston until their retirement for good on May 20, 1946. The configuration after removal of the shroud was different from its original look, as seen in the accompanying picture.
Each unit weighed 325 000 lb (147 t) and had 12 cylinders developing 1330 hp for a speed of 63 mi/h (101 km/h). They had 51 in (1.30 m) drivers and were a total of 94 ft (28.7 m) in length.
Comparing work output between Number 9000 and the Number 6000 mountain-type steam locomotive of that day, the ratio averaged seven to one. From peak speed to stop and back to peak speed again was accomplished in less than half that required for a steam locomotive. Number 9000 also cut the need for water during summer from 20 000 gal (90 m3) on a 334 mi (538 km) run to a small amount for cooling the engines only.
Why were not more units similar to the V-1-a’s built by the CNR? There were several reasons, the main one being the early death of Mr. Brooks, who favoured expansion. Construction costs were another factor since the CNR was a Crown corporation and costs were closely watched. Further to this, the feelings of the new CNR president, Sir Henry Thornton, prevented a great drive for further study and development. Speaking to a group of fuel engineers in Chicago, he once said, “I will not in any sense make the prediction that the diesel locomotive will supplant the steam locomotive for either yard or mainline service.”
Had development continued, CNR might have been the first large North American railway to be fully dieselized—and maybe as early as 1940.
The Canadian Northern Society is encouraging new and long-time members alike to get involved in the day-to-day activities of the society, and experience the rewards of providing benefits to the community through the preservation of our prairie heritage. We can use your help once per week, month or even once per year!
Do any of the following committees interest you?
1857, March 12 (145 years ago): A Great Western Railway train breaks an axle while crossing a swing bridge and plunges into the Desjardins Canal near Hamilton. 59 people are killed.
1887 (115 years ago): The Grand Trunk Railway commences double tracking its main line between Montréal and Toronto. The work was completed in 1903.
1912 (90 years ago): Canadian Pacific leases the following companies:
1952-02 (50 years ago): Canadian National’s Tunnel Station, de La Gauchetière Street, Montréal, is demolished to provide space for the laying of additional tracks in Central Station.
1972-04-01 (30 years ago): Pacific Great Eastern Railway changes its name to British Columbia Railway.
1977-01-12 (25 years ago): Via Rail Canada is incorporated to operate inter-city passenger rail service.
1977-04-18 (25 years ago): The Hall Commission Report on Grain Handling and Transportation is published. This recommends limited branch line abandonment on the prairies.
1992 (10 years ago): The Central Western Railway expands its operation by acquiring the CP Coronation and Lacombe subdivisions in Alberta.