THE CANADIAN NORTHERN RAILWAY SYSTEM
Sir William Mackenzie,
President, Canadian Northern Railway System.
With her feeders and tributaries tapping the distant, beautiful valleys of historic Arcadia and a trunk line that ensures a through fast freight service from ancient Quebec—an ideal gateway for men who go down to the sea in ships—the second steel highway in Canada’s transcontinental trio stretches hundreds of miles far and away through rolling uplands, untouched forests and waving wheat fields to Burrard Inlet and flourishing Vancouver, a busy maritime mart and door to the placid Pacific.
Built or purchased and gradually assembled by Sir William Mackenzie and Sir Donald Mann, the capitalization of the Canadian Northern Railway System, which will be taken over by the Government of the Dominion of Canada, has been reckoned at approximately $43,000 per mile for 10,000 miles of railway actually under operation, and during the arbitration proceedings at Osgoode Hall, Toronto, Mr. Pierce Butler, St. Paul, Minn., counsel speaking in behalf of his clients, stated that the railway was now on a basis of $50,000,000 gross earnings a year.
Previous to the declaration of war the “C.N.R.” was financed mainly by British capitalists whose intentions, apart from expected profit, were to directly increase the yield and transportation facilities for wheat against the possibilities of war, having in mind how far below consumption was their own production of the fundamental food.
In 1896 the Manitoba Legislature passed a charter, with land grants, providing for the construction of the Lake Manitoba Railway & Canal Company, which was not taken advantage of until 1899, when Messrs. Mackenzie and Mann purchased and commenced construction from Gladstone, Manitoba, to Winnipegosis, Manitoba, 123 miles, and operation was inaugurated January 3rd, 1897.
Construction was started the same year on the Manitoba & Southeastern Railway from Winnipeg to the Great Lakes, and in November, 1898, 45 miles of it were operated, St. Boniface to Marchand.
The Northern Pacific Railway lines in Manitoba were acquired in 1901, and in the same year the thin edge of the wedge was inserted in Ontario when Parry Sound rejoiced over its first railway connection with the outside—a 3.3 mile spur to a Canada Atlantic Railway junction.
Sir Donald Mann,
Vice-President, Canadian Northern Railway System.
In 1911 the track-end had reached the foot-hills of the Rockies and engineers declare the C.N.R.’s low elevation at the Yellow Head Pass, and where its line later decends to the sea by the valleys of the Thompson and Fraser Rivers through the Cascade Range, locates the track only a few feet above tidewater of the Pacific Ocean.
At one point on the “C.N.R.” mountain division the track is only 4½ miles from the base of Mount Robson—altitude 13,068 feet—the highest peak in the Rocky Mountains.
With the completion of the “C.N.R.” central Montreal terminal, near Dominion Square, which is approached by a 3.3 mile double tracked tunnel beneath Mount Royal, the Directorate will have an exceptional advantage in being able to move solid trains from west to east without backing down from dead-end tracks or breaking up their train formation.
The “C.N.R.” serves urban centres having more than 1,000 population containing 90% of the population of the towns and cities of Alberta and 97% of Saskatchewan, the centre of the wheat belt.
If the system should be extended to connect Toronto with Hamilton it would then have access to cities and towns aggregating 60% of the town dwellers of the entire provinces, which also produce 70% of their total manufactured products.
In 1916 the “C.N.R.” carried 132,000,000 bushels of grain: if reduced to flour and the manufactured flour which it transported be added thereto, the foodstuffs from territory along the “C.N.R.” would be sufficient to supply the British Isles’ 45,000,000 population with four pounds of bread each per week for six months. The “C.N.R.” should therefore, be regarded, especially since the advent of war, as an essential to the life of the Empire.
Statistics go to show that in the Provinces of Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia, where the principal Canadian pulp and paper mills are situated, those of the greatest capacity—or 53% of the total capacity—are situated exclusively on “C.N.R.” lines.
D. B. Hanna,
Third Vice-President, Canadian Northern Railway System.
For the year that ended with July, 1916, the exports of paper amounted to $21,680,000 of which 88% went to the United States, and the total exports of pulpwood, pulp and paper for that year were valued at $40,865,266. United States consumers gladly took 87% of this immense output, but the United Kingdom received only 6%.
During 1917, 85,000,000 feet of British Columbia lumber, in 3,850 cars, were handled by “C.N.R.” to the Prairie Provinces and Eastern Canada. Balsam and Douglas fir, red cedar, spruce, hemlock, &c., predominated. Silver spruce for aeroplanes came also, and as a result of the efforts of the Imperial Munitions Board the output of the latter has been recently doubled, the monthly production at present being approximately 1,200,000 feet.
Mr. W. H. Moore, Secretary of “C.N.R.”, in “Railway Nationalization and the Average Citizen”, makes some clear and terse comparisons of deep interest to the public spirited tax-payer anent the government’s aid given in cash, land and guaranteed bonds to “C.N.R.”, and subsidiary properties, and also to other Canadian railways, especially the Canadian Pacific Railway. He sets down that the “C.N.R.” received from federal, provincial and municipal coffers.—
| Land | Acres $ 6,555,708 |
| Cash subsidies | 38,874,148 |
| Guarantees by governments | 211,641,140 |
| Federal loans | 25,858,166 |
In rebuttal, the Government Bureau of Railway Statistics tabulates—
| To “C.P.R.”, land | Acres $ 28,023,185 |
| Cash aid to “C.P.R.” | 108,920,375 |
| Loans from Dominion Government (paid back) | 40,000,000 |
The Dominion Government’s Board of Arbitrators—Sir William Meredith, Chief Justice Harris and Wallace Nesbitt, K.C.,—which submitted a report as to the value of 600,000 shares of Canadian Northern Railway common stock, consumed 50 days from March to the middle of May in hearing the testimony of legal counsel and valuation experts, the proceedings totalling over 1,500,000 words of evidence and costing about $100,000.
F. H. Phippen,
General Counsel, Canadian Northern Railway System.
The Board’s award of $10,800,000 for the railway stock valuated, exceeded by $800,000 the limit for same made by Act of Parliament, which was $10,000,000.
Each group of participating principals paid its own costs, but the Government bore the cost of taking the evidence.
The Dominion Government is perfecting a plan whereby the “C.N.R.” will be operated as a corporation under a board of directors to be appointed by the Government. Time will tell if this method reaches fruition.
The total liabilities being taken over by the Government in connection with the “C.N.R.” are $438,264,377.67 and the assets sum up to $528,437,885.74.
Speaking for himself and also voicing the views of Sir Donald Mann and Third Vice-President D. B. Hanna, Sir William Mackenzie contended that the “C.N.R.” was destined to be an essential factor in the expansion of this country and that in the opinion of the transportation experts who had examined the situation, their properties would be particularly useful in the reconstruction days on which this land must soon enter. He said his associates had devoted the best of their years in developing the system to the present state of efficiency and confidently relied on the future to justify their work and estimates of values.
❦ ❦ ❦
As anticipated, since this resume was set in type, the Government of the Dominion of Canada has assumed control of the Canadian Northern Railway and operation of the system will at once be undertaken by a board of eight representative gentlemen with a practical and experienced railroader, Mr. D. B. Hanna, as President, who will have associated with him
Graham A. Bell, Major, Deputy Minister of Railways
A. J. Mitchell, Ottawa
E. R. Wood, Toronto, Capitalist
Robert Hobson, Hamilton, Ironmaster
Frank P. Jones, Montreal, Manager Canada Cement Company
A. T. Riley, Winnipeg, Financier
C. M. Hamilton, Weyburn, Sask., Agriculturist
A TENDERFOOT IN TEMISKAMING
And the silent places beyond awaiting the iron horse
River Drivers on the Montreal River, Temiskaming, Northern Ontario.
Marketing the jubilant flag pole and Christmas tree is a comparatively unhackneyed commercial twist not overdone and if discontented dwellers in old Ontario, seigneurial Quebec or the world at large, like that prospect or court a change from brick and asphalt to the silent places, opportunity beckons to them from amidst the serried ranks of raw material swarming over the hilly, rock-ribbed areas of Temagami, the dales of Temiskaming and Porcupine’s budding principality of golden promise.
As the newcomer’s eyes view the sea of tapering masts—shorn of drapery in winter—and the springtimes’ green undergrowth crowning summits and slopes, which in that corner of the Canadian hinterland undoubtedly conceal unconjectured lodes of mineral wealth, his brain tabulates new and fascinating impressions respecting this vast heritage and pregnant land of the future.
With the theodolite adjusted for action beside the site of a gateway to the proposed Georgian Bay Ship Canal, and shaping a course North-starward from historic environs once traversed by intrepid Frenchmen, the Ontario Government’s Railway Commission began in 1902 the construction of a colonization line from the City of North Bay, (lying 226 miles above Toronto), to the region known as the “Clay Belt” of Northern Ontario. With the discovery of silver on the “LaRose” property in 1903, the output of which during the subsequent thirteen years amounted to $135,809,222 in silver value from the camp, together with $4,000,000 from arsenic, cobalt and nickel, the building of the Temiskaming & Northern Ontario Railway was promptly extended until it reached 253 miles into the interior, making easily accessible a restful, inspiring panorama of diversified lake and landscape. Here it is that Uncle Sam’s sweltering Southerners and their Northern cousins migrate with the birds in ever increasing numbers to fish the virgin streams, to sense exhaling aromatic fragrance and be soothed by the solitude and majesty of the wilderness which appeals more and more to each contemplative one who would elude the madding crowd as he jogs adown the irregular pathway of life.
If the waters of silent Lake Nipissing could speak as they flow along, what whisperings from wigwam, of tribal feuds and exploring missionary priests would they not bequeath to posterity. But now, into this region of log cabin, birch bark and bittern those great civilizers, the twin ribbons of steel, have intruded; sleeping cars mosaic tiled and ornate, traveling via the Grand Trunk Railway from Toronto, Canadian Pacific Railway from Montreal and “U.S.A.” at Buffalo, are delivered daily to the Temiskaming & Northern Ontario Railway and circumventing space, lay bare to their prying, adventurous occupants, many of the secrets of nature in the north.
Andrew C. Kellogg,
A “Great Western” Graduate. Dean of G.T.R. Dining Car Conductors. Favorably known to patrons of the “Cobalt Special.”
As you bowl along past thicket, lake and narrow ledge to the regular accompaniment of that peculiar circus wagon “cluck, cluck”, emitted in winter by the twelve wheelers, you unconsciously wonder if it were mink, otter, lynx or fox whose softly falling pads made the trail which bisects the otherwise unruffled white mantle covering the frozen surface yonder. Meanwhile, the telltale tracks of the early morning prowlers vanish abruptly where the waters frozen boundary gives way to battalions of balsam, spruce and jack pine silently guarding the ascent to rising ground. The view begets reflection: when casually discussing the autumn hunt with a deer slayer who annually roams that region, nimrod complacently informed me that he had left the train at mileage “22” from North Bay, and before the locomotive whistled on a nearby hill his first buck was bagged. At this juncture an Indian guide from out the forest setting surrounding Lady Evelyn Lake came aboard at Temagami’s commodious, artistically conceived depot of split hardheads, and grinning broadly, substantiated the boaster’s declaration with such terseness and force that a group of globe trotting mine prospectors and sportsmen grew interested. Rifles, fish, fur and game laws started every mother’s son of them talking, and the jolly wiseacres continued their conversazione crossing Net Lake, past Rib Lake and its woodie approaches, and on to where Jack Frost had transferred Bay Lake, Wind Lake, Moose Lake and Red Pine Lakes, into cubes of crystal transparence. They did not desist until permitted a glimpse through car window of the Montreal River’s splashing, rapids tossed waters at Latchford and the developing timber possibilities at this ford, which are often duplicated along the 360 miles of this stream’s course.
These gentlemen were a cosmopolitan assemblage recruited from several and diverse regions, but all were heading towards Lake Temagami, Cobalt, Lorrain and Porcupine City’s newer, veiled enticements. Gnarled and seasoned, a veteran campaigner on “many a foreign strand” sat silently observant beside a sturdy novice, self-possessed and hopeful, encased in flannel shirt, regulation shooting boots laced high and a cow boy hat, who had yet to know hunger and the thrill of a “strike”. That composite character from the cities, merchant-miner-speculator evolved from the silver excitement, was there with his pigeon blood cravat pin and nonchalant demeanor, exchanging deductions with a facing stranger. Some one drew cork and with a mild libation all round the smoker, tongue cords loosed and a Kentuckian garbed in Mackinaw cloth knee breeches, heavy black stockings and Jaeger cap, narrated pleasantly tales of the diggings in Australia, California, Cripple Creek. A man who had been in Johannesburg talked knowingly of John Hays Hammond and the conductor tarried a moment on his rounds. Now and then, from out the babel you pieced together, “It sold this morning for—”, “Commercial arsenic”, “Rock drills”, “For stealing whiskey I smashed him on the—”, “Three and one half a share, five dollars par”, and much more in the vernacular. They were encumbered with the latest, likewise the most ancient caper in portmanteaux: they carried fire arms, hatchets, and snow shoes, coats of fewer colors than Joseph’s, but of patterns innumerable, and pack sacks stuffed like the bundles Tony shoulders when hurrying to the base of grim Vesuvius. Withal, they were a merry and optimistic company off to re-discover Champlain’s own territory, to learn that cobalt is a pinkish chemical by-product found beside silver, that single carload shipments of silver concentrates mined here have netted $142,231.00, that the camp’s dividends from silver and gold for 14 years realized $81,320,625, that rolling stock of railways all over America help to brighten “T. & N.O.” rails, that the town of Cobalt is outlandishly picturesque and unique with cartwheel, Bostonlike thoroughfares where Madame promenades in the velvet so recently au fait on Pall Mall and Broadway, while an Indian girl in moccasins stares across the divide through the window of the Golden Moon in the hope of discerning her lethargic beau. Vein sampling engineers, grubstakers, rock-worms, mine captains, prospectors and agents in coats of “astrachan goose”, fur lined or skin covered shooting jackets and everything else but tarpaulins, strut about and add to their kit, each man jack of them probably thinking he has “a nose for ore” and inside information. The oriental ear pendant also abounds, gracing the lobes of sundry vivacious French lassies at the cinematograph: dog trains await, Jacques the habitant, in capot, sash and pipe in mouth “Bon jeurs” along the even tenor of his way, while Poles, Finns and Cockney ’arry do not deliberately jostle you off the lumpy little board walk to the nearby excavation. Stalwart, brass buttoned Ontario and Dominion police are everywhere. Cobalt’s roots spread far below the surface. Underground detonations indicate that compressed air drills day and night slowly blast a mammoth sewerway for this hustling town. Not every one knows that beneath the “T. & N.O.R.” highway and handsome modern station building the Right of Way Mining Company tunnels for ore. A few hundred yards beyond and under the bottom of frozen Cobalt Lake, over which the dutiful citizen crosses on Sabbath and holyday to Father Forget’s cleanly, white painted church, the Cobalt Lake Mining Company is extending drives, crosscuts and leads seeking material that produces mineral which pleases magnates and sets the stock market operators by the ears. $1,085,000 was paid to the Government for this right. Thus does the south lag behind the north.
A Slump in Cobalt Lake. Former well known waterway now no more.
From Lorrain’s remote locality comes to Cobalt mines the compressed air and electric current generated with unique machinery from the waters impetuousity at Ragged Chutes on the Montreal River, at Hound Chute also, and at the Matabitchouan River, and not afar off the cottage in which it is said Doctor Drummond’s sympathetic spirit forsook its mortal tabernacle, keeps solitary vigil on a slope overlooking Kerr Lake. His inimitable habitant patois verse survives however, and is kept green in memory when interpreted by the nimble tongues of M. Giles or an Olive Pouze. Occasionally grazing the brink of a declivity when touring the camp, one meets wheeling or gliding past on sled behind good horses, miner’s wife from Montana or a courier in shoe packs and cold weather rig astride a sturdy, sure-footed pony. Jogging along after him the next is a native on a mustang. Similarly mounted a rangy, vigorous individual clad in seamy corduroys, jacket, ear flaps and the inevitable “larrigans” lopes by. This personage proves to be unintentionally traveling incog, as he is a big mine manager, an English expert doting on tetrahedrite crystals, heading to town for a constitutional and the morning mail.
As recently as midnight of August 19th, 1912, an undignified and profane pilgrimage to the shrine of the goddess of fortune occurred in Temiskaming. At the stroke of twelve a ziz-zagging procession of flickering lights born by all manner of men, stretching from Cobalt three miles to the famous, now naked Gillies Timber Limit, broke into motion at the double quick. Ahead of them were twelve square miles—4,000 acres—or twenty acres of undiagnosed area of rock each for the lucky two hundred eager, excited prospectors and adventurers who might stake, find ore and register for $10 at Haileybury first, and thus perchance, stumble on a king’s ransom. Ordinarily, the journey on steam coach costs Ten Cents. This night one bold spirit chartered a special train for $50.00 hoping to outstrip the throng afoot and horseback, in autos and on bicycles, armed as they were with a Five Dollar mining license and panting for place. For an hour or two the nervous strain was intense and the schemes and ruses resorted to for advantage were numerous and crafty. Sweating relay horses clattered at top speed all night between the new diggings and the district seat, positions held in person or proxy in the line-up waiting for dawn reminded one of the nocturnal vigil and struggle for tickets to behold the late Sir Henry Irving, while rumor and conjecture were rife. One energetic but luckless individual, with boundary stakes in earth, had them uprooted and tossed aside by a speculator’s hireling the moment he headed to the registry office; another collapsed from exhaustion and laid prone in the bush as the strong trod over his body and aspirations and still a third poor devil lost a pronounced advantage by falling, horse and rider, into a quagmire at the roadside, and all because there lies side by side beneath the earth’s surface silver sidewalks and blighted hopes.
Jacob Lewis Englehart,
Chairman, Temiskaming & Northern Ontario Railway Commission
Do not conclude that the term “rough diamonds” would fitly describe the mining body of to-day nor opine that they always talk gold at $20 the ounce, assay furnaces, vanners and recording tachometers. Their personnel includes a mighty spry collection of thoroughbreds of advanced education from everywhere. They are men fond of horse-flesh and saddle; men who aim straight at billiard ball or bob cat and a percentage can coax sweet strains from piano or at odd moments resort to the not violent and refining pleasure of gardening. I have seldom seen a gaudier conglomeration of old-fashioned bloom than the flowers before the bungalow of the Temiskaming Mine. In their offices and apartments several enjoy club comforts and trophies and articles of virtu adorn the walls of highly polished logs. They can “diagnose the field” for a close corporation and by theory and experience prophecy what may be found under the crust away east to Des Joachins (des swish aw) Falls, Lake St. John and Chibougamou. The gentleman who cheerfully volunteered, flashlight in hand, to pilot the writer to where drillers pierced rock at mine bottom, wore riding breeches, jacket and English spring leggings of the most approved design and a stunning waistcoat encircled his athletic proportions. He proved to be a raconteur with reminisences of “Ole Lunnon” and the Riviera, but swore fealty to Ireland’s joyous effervescence.
The legacy of this untrodden expanse is unlimited productiveness of soil, waterways and forest. The solitary explorer with pack horse and canoe spyed out a winding trail which the railways’ impedimenta of progress has speedily straightened and made easy for the quasi pioneer. The rolling ground and gentle slopes in the vicinity of Haileybury are pleasant to see. Here the clay belt and husbandman replaces rock and miner and the view from this town and farmer’s mecca—which boasts the unique feature of a floating market place—out and over Lake Temiskaming and across to where the mists conceal a quaint French settlement, Villa Marie, is indeed charming. On learning that the mission bells pealed and a convent dwelt within the borders of Quebec just over that moonlit expanse of inland sea, I confess my conception of interprovincial geography seemed out of alignment. Englehart, a divisional point, bears the name of the Railway Commission’s astute, public spirited Chairman, Jacob L. Englehart, formerly of Cleveland, Ohio, who made his Canadian debut in the Petrolia oil belt, and some forty years ago supported Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt when he was married in the Tecumseh Hotel, London, Canada, to the beautiful Mrs. Crawford of Baton Rouge, La. Jacob Englehart inaugurated the system of greenhouses which flourish in those leagues of loam and clay but the plants which predominate in that “neck of the woods”, however, are those that grow into thousands of cords of coveted pulpwood, cut in certain districts by private owners and on reserves with Government sanction. As this commodity underlies in a vital way the immense paper and publishing interests of America and Europe the supply, method of treatment, market and duty tax has become a burning topic in factory and forum both sides of the international boundary.
Over the Trail where the Railways are not
Those wind tossed forest monarchs and old pines on the hill tops that once beheld naught save the Redskin stalking an hundred animate creatures of the wild, will if spared, witness a mighty trek northward. The caravan of the white man of every clime and craft shall push past haunts of black bear, moose and trapper, portaging enroute near Cochrane beside Frederick House River. At this spot an incident at Barbers Bay in the semi-savage days of the old trading posts of the north country, has become a fearsome tradition among the indians of the Abitibi. Many years ago when the Hudson Bay Company were extending trading posts southward from Moose Factory, Frederick Barber with Indians and voyageurs established a store beside a bay perpetuating his name, at Frederick House Lake. One Christmas eve Macdougall, a halfbreed, and two companions reached the post to trade their autumn catch. Together with gifts Barber unfortunately dispensed rum. When refused more liquor the trappers murdered all hands and seized the fort. Fearing discovery and punishment of their crime, the drunken half-breeds killed every Indian who came to the post with furs. Growing anxious, several squaws who had not accompanied their braves on the midwinter journey, snow-shoed to Barbers Bay and were imprisoned by Macdougall. One woman escaped and organized an avenging party which did not arrive in time to prevent the massacre of the remaining squaws nor the flight of the halfbreed scoundrels. Then began a long chase down the Black and Abitibi Rivers. Macdougall who was tobagganing loot from the fort, was nearly overtaken in camp. He saw the trackers coming and started across Lake Abitibi, disappearing during a brief snow storm and was never seen after. The Indians gave evil spirits the credit when he vanished and they suppose the half-breed’s ghost still lingers over the lakes. It is across these trackless fastnesses, under whispering Northern Lights, that the newest national highway, the National Trans-continental & Grand Trunk Pacific Systems, dreamt of by the patriot the Right Honorable Sir Wilfrid Laurier, gradually assumed reality and now hasten communication westward with tidings from the east.
Yea, the crusade will not cease until little old Ontario is linked with the Aurora Borealis and the venturesome commoner at Frisco, New Orleans and Toronto may side step the soaring bovine market, and after an all-rail journey, harpoon his own walrus meat in James and Hudson’s Bays.
❦ ❦ ❦
MONSIEUR WILLIAM P. DUPEROW
General Passenger Agent, Grand Trunk Pacific and Canadian Government Railways
Text of an address presented to him at Toronto on the occasion of his transfer May, 1910, to “Grand Trunk Pacific” service at Vancouver, B.C.
William P. Duperow,
General Passenger Agent, Grand Trunk Pacific and Canadian Government Railways, Winnipeg, Man.
Mr. Gladstone declared “A book that will move many people of different temperaments, and different degrees of intelligence, must have power.” So it is with the individual: and because your friends in the complacent East think you undoubtedly possess the magnetic current and a warm heart, we are loth to separate from so much animated sunshine.
Colleagues, small and great, recount your generosity and regret departure, while those distressed mortals who knew your kindly assistance pour full the measure of credit.
If the public, and this galaxy of happy-go-lucky railroaders who foregather have imperfectly recited how they will miss you at quilting bees, it is not because they are hostile, but they lack Chantecler’s brazen crow.
As a scout of broad gauge calibre, tracking business to its lair, reconnoitering Indian bands or negotiating with sinner, saint and suffragette, you have been all things to all men, and along the tortuous trail they do say your sang froid, ingratiating manner and elegance of diction ranked not as common garden varieties.
The King’s currency, bestowed in embarrassing quantities, is apt to jolt one’s system into repudiating labor’s noble avocations; hence the modest proportions of this accompanying bag of francs, which your confreres—elderly, youthful, handsome—unhesitatingly tender you with earnest protests of regard.
You are now at the Hemisphere’s portal, where you can, without obstruction, behold the Fates unfolding your future; where old Sol, with blushing countenance, sinks in the “Pacific” without his bathing suit, and all supplicate you not to trip o’er the guy ropes when gazing at comets with the astronomers.
We trust the doors to preferment, now open, will disclose to you and yours the uneven highway of life growing smoother and wider, and may the blessing of good health crown all.
The Committee:—R. S. Lewis, L.V.R.; A. J. Taylor, C. M. & St.P.R.; J. J. Rose, C.P.R.; J. A. Richardson, Wabash Railroad; B. H. Bennett, C. & N.W.R.; C. E. Horning, G.T.R.
W. J. MOFFATT
JOHN J. ROSE
Passport Photograph Collection loaned by
| W. J. Moffatt | City Passenger Agent, G.T.R. | Toronto |
| John J. Rose | General Agent, Union Pacific Railway | Toronto |
Read from left to right—
| W. Adamson | T.F.A., N.P.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| S. A. Baker | G.A., C.G.W.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| B. H. Bennett | G.A., C. & N.W.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| F. Bowman | C.F.A., C.P.R. | Hamilton, Ont. |
| J. J. Brignall | T.P.A., Robert Reford Co. | Toronto, Ont. |
| J. H. Callahan | Passenger Conductor, G.T.R. | Goderich, Ont. |
| F. R. Caldwell | Manager, Cluett, Peabody Co. | Toronto, Ont. |
| S. Crossley | Dining Car Conductor, G.T.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| W. Corbett | T.P.A., C.P.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| E. J. Downey | Inspector, C. C. S. Bureau | Toronto, Ont. |
| G. Easson | T.F.A., C.N.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| T. Evans | G.A., M.C.R. | London, Ont. |
| F. C. Foy | C.P.A., N.Y.C. & H.R.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| J. Gray (late) | Agent, G.T.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| W. A. Gray | C.F.A., D.L. & W.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| W. Grundy | Depot, T.A., G.T.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| M. M. Hagarty | Advertising Department, C.P.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| J. C. Heaton | Manager, Time Table Distribution Co. | Toronto, Ont. |
| L. Howe | Traffic Department, Board of Trade | Toronto, Ont. |
| D. M. Johnson | Agent, G.T.R. | Preston, Ont. |
| R. J. Kearns | New York Life | Toronto, Ont. |
| J. W. McGuire | T.F.A., C.P.R. | Hamilton, Ont. |
| S. J. Murphy | T.P.A., Canada S.S. Lines | Toronto, Ont. |
| F. A. Nancekivell | Traffic Manager, Ford Motor Co. | Ford, Ont. |
| A. E. Pernfuss | C.P. & T.A., G.T.R. | Kitchener, Ont. |
| T. Symington | Superintendent, Shedden Co. | Toronto, Ont. |
| H. E. Watkins | G.E.C.A., G.N.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| G. C. Wilson | T.F.A., Soo Line | Buffalo, N.Y. |
| D. H. Way | Agent, T. & N.O.R. | Cobalt, Ont. |
| H. E. Uttley | Assistant Traffic Manager, Imperial Oil Co. | Toronto, Ont. |
Passport Photograph Collection loaned by Messrs W. J. Moffatt and J. J. Rose.
Read from left to right—
| A. M. Adams | Agent, G.T.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| W. J. Burr | S.P.A., G.T.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| F. R. Clarke | S.F.A., G.T.R., Import Department | Toronto, Ont. |
| J. M. Copeland | T.F. & P.A., C. & N.W.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| E. S. Davies | Advertising Manager, C.N.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| H. T. Duffy | D.P.A., Soo Line | Duluth, Minn. |
| W. Fulton | Assistant Dist. Passenger Agent, C.P.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| R. A. Gill | T.P.A., G.T.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| L. L. Grabill | General Baggage Agent, G.T.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| T. J. Hennessy | T.F.A., L.V.R. | Chicago, Ill. |
| F. V. Higginbottom | C.P. & T.A., C.N.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| C. E. Hilliker | D.F. & P.A., C.M. & St. P.R. | Des Moines, Ia. |
| H. B. Hollaway | C.A., Adams Express Co. | Toronto, Ont. |
| J. Jolly | S.F.A., C.P.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| S. R. Joyce | T.P.A., G.T.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| C. M. Knowles | C.T.A., N.Y.C. & H.R.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| R. A. Lennox | S.F.A., G.T.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| A. J. Letch | Inspector, C.C.S. Bureau | Toronto, Ont. |
| C. H. Lown | Traffic Mgr., Imperial Oil Co. | Toronto, Ont. |
| D. A. McCall | T.F.A., C.P.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| R. McRae | Accountant, G.T.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| R. G. McCraw | Inspector, C.F. Association | Toronto, Ont. |
| M. Macdonald | Assistant Inspector of Weighing, G.T.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| W. McIlroy | C.C., D.P.A., C.P.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| T. Mullins | C.P.A., C.P.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| L. R. Mulholland | Kent, McLean Co. | Winnipeg, Man. |
| G. G. O’Flaherty | C. C., Sup’t Transportation, G.T.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| W. H. Polley | C.T.A., C.P.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| J. H. Roberts | C.C., C.T.A., G.T.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| W. J. Ryan | Inspector of Trade-marks | Toronto, Ont. |
| C. P. Sargent | T.P.A., White Star Line | Toronto, Ont. |
| H. Scott | T.C., C.O., G.T.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| F. H. Terry | T.A., G.N.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
| G. M. Thomas | T.A., Canadian Government Railways | Toronto, Ont. |
| E. F. Walker | Manager, Old Country Tours | Toronto, Ont. |
| J. A. Yorick | C.F. & P.A., C.B. & Q.R. | Toronto, Ont. |
THOSE UNDIGNIFIED BOX CARS
Some methods of the men who control their movements
When Mademoiselle Susanna Vere de Vere, haughty and capricious, talcumed and beflounced, rides east at 10:00 a.m., ensconsced in green plushed parlor car comfort, think you she recognizes as she rolls along, the significance of the irregular hedge that flanks for miles her chosen pathway? Can she see in that jagged sky line of uneven box car roofs, so unlike the matched uniformity of the coral beads in her necklace—the source of the revenue which purchased the ornament? Probably not. Does Oliver Opulence across the isle, with fattening jowls and the latest periodical, attribute his golfing privileges and bank balance to the agency of the lowly freight car? No, not in the fullest measure.
The routine duties of John Jones Limited in to-day’s strenuous commercial struggle are based entirely on what freight service has done or will accomplish for them, and during conferences with their purchasing and traffic assistants, concrete equipment needs are dealt with daily but the vital usefulness of each empty car as a retainer and carrier are thought of only in an abstract way, yet they are as essential as the “G.T.R.” or three daily meals. Not until such time as the advent of an industrial calamity that will destroy them all, leaving coal man, merchant and bacon baron stranded high and dry, will shippers unanimously appreciate their individual worth, and not until then will cease the desire of corporate interests to haul their valuable loads along this or that favored highway of steel. Not a pulley in manufacture could turn without their direct aid, meagre would be the housewives’ meals and pelts again be their children’s portion if the wheels refused to whirr: then indeed, would Mademoiselle Susanna Vere de Vere understand the sudden death of Pullman palaces from commercial paralysis.
A tortuous string of seventy freight cars in motion is not what you would designate as a “harmonious whole” in appearance. They remind you of a herd of elephants with baggy pants traveling trunk to tail, nor do these incongruous, ill-at-ease assortments of traffic proletariat pick their company. The tall and the short, the lame, the halt and the blind they have always with them, and if a trig, shiny aristocrat once, costing approximately $1,200 to $1,500, (but to-day twice as much) that should be on his owner’s tracks, strays into line with this perambulating Coxey’s Army he soon gets the spots knocked off him, like a “rookie” enlisted with the regulars. They all receive awful treatment, they are side tracked, snubbed and roughly handled and though doctored, patched, likewise overburdened, they return more good for evil by feeding mice and men and machinery than any other medium. The funniest feature about these democratic go-betweens is that a loose jointed, squatty old party, rocking from side to side with the load in his protruding stomach and hardly able to keep step with the tribe, may have his “innards” stuffed with silks and satins to bedeck some slavish goddess of fashion who never appreciates what ship brought the feathers and finery to port—and such is human nature.
However, the officials of every railroad company from the president, traffic manager and “G.F.A.”, down the ladder to the journal oilers, make recompense, court the freight cars and strive mightily for the privilege of transporting their variegated contents and these are the men who make them make millions. It is a game with far reaching ramifications, a contest of competitors where brains and dispatch, service, sentiment and cold figures diversify the play. Some times it is as uncertain and exciting as draw poker with a brazen bluff cropping up, but the line that can deliver the goods usually scores and gathers in the ducats. The nets are out every hour of the twenty-four and they are out at every important geographical centre on the continent, making the sport in variety and complexion, more devoid of monotony than most mundane pursuits.
Traffic men seek every commodity from a carload of lemonade straws to a shipment of zinc dust from Japan for the Porcupine Mines, they talk on every topic from tunnel clearances to the effect of the Budget, and have interviewed specimens of the genus homo as yet uncharted by the phrenologists. They study tact and diplomacy, but few have equalled the art of a Manitoba farmer whom it has been said, kept himself in coal for the winter by making faces at the passing “C.P.R.” firemen and engineers. Customers’ wishes, siding accommodation, enclosures, cartage, part lots, classification, temperature, icing and a thousand other conditions influence the movement. Among freight men resourcefulness is an ever present adjunct in devising ways and means to enlist adherence, placate the public, overcome delay and get around an obstacle, recalling the expedient of a new shedman who was puzzled as to how he could load in the “way” car a piece of crated machinery too large for the door. He resorted to the alternative of removing the casing, then easily transferring the unwieldly consignment inside and after recrating, left the later problem to the man who would deliver the goods.
“Work well begun is half done” saith the old saw, and the sage was right. Starting on a few calls some pleasant morning with the outside atmosphere exhilarating, if your initial visit happens on one of those considerate, business gentlemen who can devote three to thirty minutes of his time to your mission, and concluding the X.Y.Z. road might be worse, promises a share of the traffic he has offering, you usually approach the balance of the day’s duties with optimism. Experiences multiply, but this feeling will probably carry you past the resentful individual who holds a little stock of your Company and refuses business because his security is temporarily dropping and it will likewise help to cement acquaintance with the cautious man who would like to but fears his couple of cars would be held up or lost should Canada and the United States drift into war. Emboldened to continue the good work, you harken to the complaints of one of your local agents, both officious and secretive—who sends all his correspondence in under separate cover and wonders why it don’t receive prompt attention when the chief is away. If diminuitive this representative might become a detriment and antagonize trade and his running mate is the agent appointed by the operating department who proves a thorn in the flesh of the Division Freight Agent by snarling, rat-terrier, dictatorial demeanor until the shipping body in unanimous resolution declare “that agent cannot leave quick enough to suit me”. Hot on the heels of the visiting “D.F.A.”, who is supposed by many to always have an easy time, bobs up an obsequious Hebrew at the period of great car shortage, with a tale of woe about a man coming upon him just as he was loading a few bales and shouting “Here, what are you doing with my car?” It developed that the blusterer could not procure a car himself and bethought him to pounce on the inoffensive rag man and purloin the coveted empty box car.
Fortified by an agreement with an anxious fresh fruit buyer, whereby he is guaranteed forty refrigerator cars in return for their haul homeward a few hundred miles, a call is made on a canned salmon distributor. This is his acknowledgment to your opening salute. “Who told you I had a car of salmon? I have no salmon and am not thinking of fish just now—this isn’t Friday”. However, he proved amenable to reason and issued a routing order.
A Grand Trunk Railway commercial agent related to me recently the following outline of a verbal castigation administered to himself by a mourner who must have been wearing indigo spectacles: “The idea of giving business to ‘U.M.C.’ lines, we’ll have no truck or trade with them. It is very indiscreet of you to dare to try; when you can compete on an equal basis with the ‘C.P.R.’ then come in”. A well intentioned, but premature overture earned one young general agent, new to his territory, an undeserved rebuke in response to his civil enquiries: “Well, I guess I hav’nt anything to say to you to-day”.
“I came in primarily to ask you to take luncheon with me, would you join me at one o’clock?”
“No, I had my lunch at the proper hour” came the quick rejoinder. Fortunately, the balance of the day was spent among “white men” of whom there are 95 per cent. naturally inclined to transact business with reason and decency, and their broad guage tendency seems to expand in proportion to the magnitude and responsibility of their undertakings.
Another gentleman occasioned a good deal of laughter telling on himself the story of taking his new chief on an introductory tour and being embarrassed to learn that the first manufacturer they called on had been dead for a year, and the second one, whom our friend knew to some extent, asking him what his name was. It takes time to talk away or live down these little incidents. Now and then a modest shipper with about one car a year traveling in your direction, will unblushingly suggest that he be loaned one of your annual passes for a little trip down to New York, and I recall hearing of a wallet of transportation, in the wrong hands, being lost in the railway yards near Rochester.
A number of the boys remember certain shippers who have had an insatiable longing for some substantial token in reciprocity for the traffic they could control, with a leaning towards a variety of household furnishings and what-nots.
Patronage lists and their influence, if operative the wrong way, are often the invention of the evil one and nullify the efforts of a conscientious worker, otherwise in good standing with all parties. One day Billy A——, General Freight Agent of the Canadian Pacific Railway, called with a traveling representative on a certain undesignated Canadian biscuit factory: out came the list with the statement of the egregious young manager that “Your road is not using our product on its diners.”
“Well,” promptly responded the truthful William, “It may be they are not good enough”.
To elaborate further, a contractor erecting a building in a distant city for a firm doing a large outfitting and general selling business, routed twelve carloads of structural steel that he required, via the “P.D.Q.R.” A wide awake, aggressive competitor coveted the haul of the material and meant to have it. They promptly placed an $80,000 order for hotel requisites with the outfitting firm and the latter, feeling the pressure where it was intended to be felt, capitulated, assuaged the contractor’s rising ire in a monetary but lesser degree, which, of course, jilted the expectations of the “P.D.Q.R.”
A competing line with heavy purchasing appropriations has been known to often frustrate genuine tonnage hopes by wiring that the name of a shipper interested in a transaction, be removed from their patronage lists unless he immediately saw the error of his ways and banished consideration for a rival route or an M.P., in Victoria, B.C., we’ll say, may exert some influence he may have and busy himself by telegraphing to forward specific public works supplies from the east this way or that.
The staff of a district freight department may do considerable preparatory work regarding, for instance, the movement of Australian and New Zealand wool for Europe to find their plans upset by a necessary war-time embargo affecting the transport of sheep skins and crossbred wool through this port or that country.
The bete noir of all railroad men is the shifty, unprincipled person who deceives you with a misleading yarn and means to do something else. A sample of this method of operating is outlined in the case following, and concerns a carload of pianos going from an Ontario town to Vancouver, B.C. Knowing his man, the consignee had telegraphed and also written the shippers “Route our car now loading ‘N.C.O. & B.R.R.’: under no circumstances deviate, pay no attention to other instructions, this is final.” To dull the watchfulness of the interested railways, Ananias declared the shipment would be held pending the arrival from elsewhere of an enclosure of four pianos, meanwhile laboring secretly to dispatch the complete shipment in the interim contrary to instructions. Temporarily balked in his fell purpose, to disarm suspicion when interrogated, he actually ordered placed on his siding a suitable car as a screen or camouflage, but pursued his original plan. Not until repeatedly disciplined by the head office did this factory manager desist and finally unload the forbidden car and obey orders. Such an employee is a stumbling block to progressive business.
George Tootle
Disappointments and neck and neck finishes are frequent, but variety is the spice and fascinating magnet in railroading life and when shrewd manufacturers repudiate narrowness by distributing the plums among a number, “We fell on their necks with loud cries”, as handsome Jack McGuire of the “C.P.R.” would say. These incidents are reminiscent of a whiskey traveler who alleges he interviewed at Chicago the superintendent of dining cars for a well known railroad. To quote his own words “I paid proper attention to my personal appearance, wore my Persian lamb-skin coat and anticipated an order”. Contrary to expectations, however, the interview fell flat, no contract was made and for years after, this crestfallen liquor man went out of his way to divert his company’s shipments away from that line via other channels, to the discomfiture of railway men in no way responsible and notwithstanding the fact that the offending Dining Car Superintendent stoutly contended it was not his road but another that was unappreciative or stocked with rye. Speaking of the commissariat department, George Tootle, the widely known dining car waiter on the G.T.R.’s famous International Limited train, who thinks lunch counters breed nervousness and indigestion, relates observing at Chicago the following:—
A “hayseedy” looking man with field mice jumping out of his whiskers, walked up to the lunch counter, seated himself on a stool, placed his bright-colored carpet bag on the next stool and partook of a hearty lunch. He passed the young man a $1 bill to take out the price of his lunch, 50 cents, and was surprised when the youth said: “Not any change, sir; your carpet bag occupied a seat, and we must collect for that.”
The old man looked dazed for a second only, and then replied:
“All right, my boy”, and opening the bag, exclaimed, “Old carpet bag, I have paid for your lunch and you shall have it.”
Quicker than a flash he threw in a mince pie, a plate of doughnuts and several sandwiches, and departed amid the shouts of everyone in the station.
One does not mind unintentionally stumbling on a hasty eruption in temper of a decent chap who has just found five of his letters opened by intent or on the part of a careless firm with a similar name, but we would rather not be granted an audience with an apple exporter who fathers four hundred barrels of fruit lying on the dock at Halifax ready for a ship’s hold at the psychological moment when an inspector condemns the lot because the centres are filled with undersized apples.
Tenacity of purpose and “Never say die”—which compel results—are well exemplified by a happening that came to my notice some years ago, involving two cars of shoes which were routed and definitely promised to one trans-continental line. A rival corporation sent a city solicitor after them without securing the footwear. The city freight agent then essayed the task with like success. Undaunted the “D.F.A.” was the next to try, but the shipper remaining firm stuck to his guns when the fourth application was made in the person of the freight traffic manager. The news spread and on Wednesday evening of that week, when the gentleman who shewed such valor in defending his citadel of shoe leather, to the accompaniment of the silent prayers of the party of the first part, called at the president’s residence to visit his daughter, the denouement hung fire no longer. A word, under such circumstances from the high official proved sufficient and the loser then understood the quotation, “An idol but with feet of clay.”
An active traveling agent and irresistible business getter told me once of a prominent London firm promising him a carload if he would remain absent for six months, of another who suggested “Sell some goods for us and we will favor your route,” while the third—an old ‘Q’ employee who claimed the ‘Q’ was a large family—looking at his watch, said “Wait twenty minutes.” Waiting twenty minutes is a nerve-racking ordeal that also affects a gentleman’s prestige and a better method of procedure would be to pre-arrange a meeting out of deference to the demands on busy people’s time. It is awkward, after traveling some distance for the purpose, to find on meeting the member of Messrs. Frett & Growl Limited, that he will not meet your eye, will not shew signs of animation, but with head down apparently saving his breath for a long distance race, terminates the interview in melancholy with “No!”
There was a traffic official in an eastern metropolis some years ago, representing a fine railroad but kept in the chair by other people’s financial power, who was notorious for that stealthy, furtive habit of fumbling with his papers without looking up, as though fearful his eyes would convict him of his sins against men.
In the category of queer ones could be listed the eccentric who accosted a friend of mine, now doing trustworthy executive work for the government railways, with “What, you here again?”
“Just for three minutes, Sir, to place a routing order!” “You won’t be here a minute, I’m too busy. I can’t be bothered by you and your routing order; it isn’t worth the paper it is written on.” With people like this unmuzzled and at large, can you wonder at the increase in crime.
Another good acquaintance who was invited to an inner office to unburden his mind and concisely recited the nature of his business without molestation, was dumbfounded when finished to observe the creature before him, without parley, touch a buzzer, summon a servitor and request him to “Shew this gentleman out.” What would you rather do than live with him? Some men’s physical boundaries and narrow-minded outlook are so small and contemptible that if a mosquito laid out a nine hole golf course on their torso he would be crowded for room.
A decade or so ago there dwelt in a town an hour’s ride east of Toronto, an individual like a ruffled grouse who thought to slay his interviewer summarily with “What you tell me goes in one ear and out the other,” as he made a personally conducted tour to the door. Quickly came the retort courteous: “I am not surprised Mr. —— there is nothing there to stop it.”
Now comes that robust type that would probably not wince when getting it back in kind if his antagonist could fittingly measure up to his standard in words and deeds. Picture the horned and forbidding monster, swollen with pride of place, who greets the caller as though he were going to swallow him whole and allow his gastric juice to do the rest: “Well, your company has one H— of a nerve to send you out here asking me for business: you built a station, some big contracts were let, but you were all looking out of the window when I wanted a slice,” finishing with a coup de grace, “What have you got to say about that?” His caller replied, “I guess our management took a leaf out of your book; how much of your business have we handled in the past ten years, tell me that? We learn to know who our friends are and when we have some favors to place we don’t hurry with them on a platter to the people who forget our route, but try to remember those who realize that if we are lucky we run a train or two about once a week out west.” The lengths to which some folks will go to make personal a neutral issue is astonishing. A man who had been employed in Chicago by a firm that could not prevail on the “C. & A.” to give them an order, came to Canada to work for an Ontario industry and expressed his intention to gratify that grudge by witholding shipments of the new employer from the railway he had placed under the ban.
The book of boors will admit of one more entry, being a letter I have permission to reproduce, which was addressed to one snob by a conscientious and sensitive young agent who has since transferred his energies to another channel.
Dear Sir—
The three sentences below—
“Who are you and what do you want?” “I would be ashamed to be so unpatriotic as to work for Yankee employers.”
“I’ll give you fellows business only when I’m in a hole and cannot do otherwise!”
form the subject of this communication and are exactly the text and sense of part of two conversations which occurred between you and myself—involuntarily on my part—and only because I was acting on orders while in the capacity of an employee of a “U.S.A.” railway seeking a share of the routing of the freight traffic you purchased in the United States or shipped westward, and which, unfortunately, you controlled.
No longer situated where behavior and language like yours has opportunity to grievously test the patience of myself, (and several others), permit me to allude to the impression you create.
When people of your calibre, quite devoid of consideration and finesse, receive a business proposition with a verbal attack couched in the tone and vernacular of your moulding shop, they are, no doubt, running true to form, but they take refuge behind the assumption that there is no one to question their attitude.
In doing so they indulge in a cowardly advantage over gentlemen who, by the nature of their employment, from president down, always have to remember the officials higher up; remember also, that in giving free rein to their human resentment, they may be rewarded with a letter of complaint, half true and half garbled, sent in by some cad to an officer disloyal enough to first believe the outsider.
Reflect on how disconcerted your son might feel were he to experience the misfortune of meeting a sour tempered individual like yourself when first coming in contact with the commercial public. He could not do himself justice nor serve you well.
The proverb says “One cannot make a silken purse out of a sow’s ear,” and although it is difficult to rebuild what the man in the street characterizes as a “rough neck,” it is never too late to mend.
The isolated class referred to are known by representatives of all businesses and are tacitly ostracized when the army of decent fellows is being discussed.
“Please heed the handwriting on the wall”
That man was “misfit” who should have been polishing apples for a Greek—to quote Jack Rose, an original wit.
After bidding adieu to the friendly personage who has accepted a mild cigar, but uncontented, megaphones to a couple of others at the rear in this wise, “Here Jake and Eddie, get in on the cigars,” our conversation in the “smoker” again reverted to pianos and things harmonious and cheerful. Genial M. T. Case recounted how fire, while in transit, ruined a carload of pianos when en route the west and the firm’s western manager, a believer in long odds, filed a claim for reimbursement, itemizing the instruments at $500 each. When the railway company received the billet doux they blinked and may have said “For the love of Mike” or something less classical and affectionate. However, as soon as the firms attention was drawn to the amount of the claim the manager, with good judgment, clipped $200 off each piano and a prompt settlement was arranged.
Only a few months ago an organized band of box car and freight shed thieves stole nine pianos and four phonographs from one railway company in a large city, and to date six had been recovered. Claims arising from damage, delay, theft, loss and wrecks are traffic men’s enemies that play the mischief and filter through all departments to the chief legal authorities. Of late years the railway companies have been stimulated to eternal vigilance in order to combat daring robbers with confederate organization quite far reaching and involving from twenty to forty people within the ranks of employees and outside. Such a gang is said to have stolen from one company in four months goods valued at $35,000, comprising candy, cameras, sugar, liquors, musical instruments and clothing. The investigation departments have recovered from beneath hay stacks not far from Toronto, Canada, for instance, forty suits of underwear and a dozen pairs of ladies high suede boots. Imagine the temerity of the men making off with twenty head of sheep from under the eyes of yardmen and special officers. The public press not long ago chronicled details of the loss of fifteen sacks of flour from one car en route Buffalo to Belleville. Whiskey is an outstanding temptation and many a headache that starts rolling fails to join the soda waiting at the other end. Out of a thirty case consignment from further west, making the one night journey from St. Thomas to Black Rock, there checked fifteen cases missing, lock, stock and barrel—the wood only of four cases remained and eleven cases were intact. Unmerited onus for losses is now and then thought to rest with the railroads which enquiry does not substantiate. A well known firm in the congested wholesale zone of a neighboring city engaged a detective who pussy-footed about the premises for a year without locating a leak. This human bloodhound may have had a cold in his head and was a poor scenter as it was developed later that the shortages were manipulated as a side line by a vinegar mill shipper who got away with also $6,000 of the hardened cider—mostly recovered—and had been supplying a small pickle factory through the medium of a carter who drove up daily for kegs.
Railway companies very seldom pilfer, but the action of more than one railroad on this continent in appropriating urgently needed steam coal billed to others during the winters of 1917–18, will prepare the reader’s viewpoint for a claim for reimbursement placed in the hands of the Silverplate Road, covering fifty cars of slack coal, lost and being vigorously traced, which that line had seized and hastily dumped into a big washout cavity.
Whitewashing coal would seem to be a labor as unheard of as washing the spots off the leopard, yet, says the Saturday Evening Post, that apparently crazy scheme is carried out by some western railroads. The coal is whitewashed, not for aesthetic reasons, but simply to prevent theft in transit. Before a car of coal starts on its journey the top layers are sprayed with limewater, which leaves a white coating on each lump of black coal after the water evaporates. The removal of even a small quantity from that whitewashed layer is immediately detected, so that the exact junction or station at which the theft occurred can be noticed.
Once upon a time when many boys were investigating the fallacy of the supposed transformation of a black horse hair into a snake after nine days sojourn in the rain barrel, a loaded oil tank car was glued to the rails in Detroit yards, but urgently needed on the other side of the international boundary. Giving a clear receipt, a connecting line hooked on to it, but almost immediately finding the tank in a leaking condition because the discharge pipe had been snapped in a rough shunt, they shot it back to the original carriers. The latter were on guard and refused it, the tank in the meantime losing 200 gallons of oil. To aggravate matters, a third railway whose office was to deliver the shipment, looked askance at the “cripple” and thus both exits were closed. Despite the pleadings of the consignees for the oil, the middle line holding the “white elephant” turned to them a deaf ear until a settlement would be made. After much fencing and correspondence an adjustment on a mileage basis was arrived at. The road accepting the “bad order” tank was held liable for a proportion gauged by a thirty mile haul, and the comparatively innocent delivering company, being ten miles longer, drew a debit of $4,000.
The interpretation of a maze of tariff rates and a thousand lights and shadows affecting their application, as well as classification, deadlocks regarding analogous goods perplex and keep bright the wits of railway people, that the responsibility may be placed where it should rest. To elucidate this remark let me refer in passing, to a partly demented and very undependable dealer in a commodity that was barrelled—long since gone to his reward—who requested and obtained a quotation on a specific shipment of twenty cars, each to contain a stated number of barrels, which were to be of agreed size and weight. He then had made a larger barrel, forwarded the product in them and, of course, when weighed a heavy undercharge claim developed, the carriers holding the short end.
Different from this was the experience of a car of eastbound California oranges traveling via the gorges and canyons of a Rocky Mountain railway. A broken axle precipitated trouble in the middle of the train which threw the “cripple” out of alignment and in shorter time than is consumed in relating it, the down-grade impetus and pressure wrenched it free throwing the disabled car clear. It fell to the bottom of the gorge, the automatic couplers linked the drawheads of the separated halves of the train and no one was wiser until the following springtime freshets uncovered the debris at the base of a cliff, clearing up a mystery for the checkers and claim department.
Sparks from passing locomotives do widespread damage to crops and fencing and a battalion of agents are continually engrossed with personal injury matters and destruction of stock. A car of expensive western steers was recently heading eastward to the seaboard when early in the morning prairie grass in the racks of troughs igniting from sparks started a blaze. Being under way, the crew did not detect the trouble at once but, on learning the danger, they raced to the water tank at Ingersoll. Before the water was reached a draw bar pulled out and broke setting the emergency brakes hard, jolting the train to a sudden stop. Fifteen head of the cattle were found roasted to death and three jumped from the car and ran amuck crazed with blisters and the intense heat. Railroading is not all profit. Some days you cannot lay up a cent. The following true story is apropos:—
“How many cows have you now?” inquired the visitor.
“Eight,” replied Farmer Corntossel, discontentedly; “all comin’ home reg’lar every night to make work for somebody.”
“I understand two of your neighbor’s cows got hit by railway trains last week.”
“Yep. An’ he got cash fur ’em, too. I don’t see how that feller trains his cattle not to shy at a locomotive.”—Washington Star.
When the public magnifies the cash returns from ticket sales and freight traffic it has not an accurate conception of the immense sums paid out annually by the railway companies for the adjustment of even small claims. Traffic Manager Adam Scott of the F. W. Woolworth Company, with eighty-five stores in Canada, was instrumental in having authorized during the past fiscal year $16,000 in vouchers issued to write off small claims on less than carload shipments of glassware and crockery. This firm controls nine hundred and ninety-eight stores in America and the sums involved in this phase of profit and loss must be immense.
On one occasion the Great Northern Railway wrote the Heinz Pickle Company, Leamington, Ont., regarding the collection of an undercharge amounting to $40.09, which arose from an error in prepaying the freight charges on a carload shipped to Vancouver, B.C. The Pickle Company’s Traffic Manager, at Pittsburg, Pa., working in accordance with the Inter-state Commerce Act Rules, promptly acknowledged the liability in an elaborate statement, with cheque, assuring the railway company that the correct amount of the discrepancy was, on further investigation, found to be $80.45. In other days we all knew some people who would have gasped at such an evidence of gratuitous fair dealing, but to quote from William Shakespeare, the listener would be fit for “treason, stratagem and spoils” whose risibilities are not tickled with a recital of the claim of a cautious old sexton, made on the Canadian Northern Railway at Winnipeg for two funeral tollings at $2 each which he would have received had the railway delivered the expected church bell in time. And so the old world and the amusing people on it, with their pleasantries and foibles, roll across the stage of every-day existence.
LINES ADDRESSED TO FREDERICK P. NELSON
Traveling Agent, Grand Trunk Railway, on the occasion of his marriage, Hamilton, Canada, May 27th, 1912
“We must encourage the young,” said a former acquaintance of your father—a benevolent old benedict—who cheerfully swung into line with the friends wishing to mark your approaching marriage and who would honor you with more than the sentiments expressed herein.
The matrimonial contract of that railroading knight is nearing completion; yours is about to be undertaken with ideals, hope and resolve. Undoubtedly the trail will develop many joys and some kinks in the path, but we are convinced that you can measure up to the best traditions of the lords of creation. Those who have basked in the rays of your genial personality prophecy you will prove docile “In bond” and all of us will “Watch your smoke.”
You spring from sturdy stock, long identified with railway construction in Canada, and since those other days in the loft of Hamilton’s smoke smeared freight shed, down the avenue of occupations in your native city, abroad in Western Ontario and throughout the business zone of Toronto, few dare question your reputation for urbanity, commercial sense and thoroughness. Where master and man wrest for silver fortunes in Cobalt Camp, they say your methods and diplomatic behavior were “as smooth as a kitten’s wrist” and a decided asset to the Grand Trunk Railway.
As a reminder of your bachelor days and associations: as a token of regard when nearing the threshold of a momentous event in your life, accept from subscribing friends whose names are attached hereto, the accompanying gift of dining room furniture—a contribution towards your household gods.
To the estimable lady who is to become Mrs. Nelson, please convey our profound respect; we presume her journey from Brockville to Hamilton will be a personally conducted tour. You both have our earnest and best wishes for a happy future.
| For the Committees— | J. A. Yorick, | C.B. & Q.R. |
| J. M. Copeland, | C.M. & St. P.R. | |
| A. S. Munro, | G.T.R. | |
| Lynn C. Doyle, | The Irish |
HAMILTON, A HOTHOUSE FOR TRANSPORTATION MEN
Her numerous railway and navigation sons abroad
E. Alexander
Secretary, Can. Pac. Railway Montreal, Que.
| L. J. Burns, D.F.A., Canada Steamship Lines, Toronto, Ont. | |
| 1. | J. J. Byrne, Ass’t. Pass. Traffic Mgr., Santa Fe Lines, Los Angeles. |
| 2. | G. J. Charlton, Pass. Traffic Mgr., Chicago & Alton Road, Chicago. |
| 3. | H. W. Cowan, Operating Mgr., Canada Steamship Lines, Montreal. |
| 4. | K. J. Fitzpatrick, T.P.A., L.V.R., Toronto, Ont. |
| D. E. Galloway, Ass’t. to President, G.T.R., Montreal. | |
| 5. | J. Gorman, Supt. Dining and Sleeping Cars, G.T.P.R., Winnipeg. |
| W. Herman, Ex-General Passenger Agent, “D. & C.” Line, Cleveland. | |
| 6. | A. Hilton, Pass. Traffic Mgr., Frisco Lines, St. Louis. |
| J. Horsburgh, Ex-Gen. Passenger Agent, Southern Pacific Railway. | |
| J. T. Lewis, Superintendent, Tenn. Central Railway, Nashville, Tenn. | |
| 7. | T. Marshall, Traffic Manager, Board of Trade, Toronto, Canada. |
| 8. | C. R. Morgan, Ex-C.P. & T.A., G.T.R.—Fighting for us in France. |
| 9. | A. S. Munro, Commercial Agent, G.T.R., London, Ont. |
| 10. | G. W. Norman, Traveling Passenger Agent, G.T.R., Chicago. |
| 11. | H. Parry, General Passenger Agent, N.Y.C. & H.R.R., Buffalo. |
| 12. | N. J. Power, Ex-General Passenger Agent, G.T.R., now in California. |
| Robert Somerville, President, Judson F. F. Co., Chicago. | |
| 13. | A. A. Tisdale, Assistant to Vice-President, G.T.P.R., Winnipeg. |
| H. E. Watkins, General Eastern Canadian Agent, Great Northern Railway. | |
| 14. | R. J. S. Weatherston, Division Freight Agent, G.T.R., Stratford, Ont. |
| N. Van Wyck, Purchasing Agent, Canada Steamship Lines, Montreal. | |
| 15. | J. A. Yorick, Canadian Agent, C.B. & Q.R., Toronto, Canada. |
A PILFERED POT-POURRI
Timid Traveler vs. Tantalizing Ticket Clerk at the Bureau of Information
The Timid Traveler.
Ticket Clerk—Where do you wish to go, Sir?
Timid Traveler—Well, what stations have you?
T.C.—We have Portland, Oregon and Portland, Maine.
T.T.—Which is the cheapest?
T.C.—To Maine for $15 and tax, if you sit up nights.
T.T.—It hadn’t orter come so high, I paid my taxes!
Can you carry me to New York State, please?
T.C.—Delighted, if I could, but you’re too heavy.
T.T.—(Puzzled). I mean could you sell me through to the Bronx?
T.C.—The strange animals are all there—you might be caged.
T.T.—Well then, Iona Station?
T.C.—What station do you own?
T.T.—You seem stupid, I mean I might go to Iona Station.
T.C.—You have my permission, Ruben.
T.T.—I do want to go there in the worst way.
T.C.—Then don’t use this line, we’re the best way—P.D.Q. way.
T.T.—Oh indeed, what does “P.D.Q.” mean?
T.C.—I hate to tell you.
T.T.—But listen, my dear young man:
T.C.—Nay, Cæsar, I’m not your dear young man!
T.T.—May I leave this basket of potatoes in the Office?
T.C.—Read that warning:
ALL PARCELS, PACKAGES AND GRIPS LEFT AND NOT CHECKED, MUST BE CHECKED OR THEY CANNOT BE LEFT IN THE DEPOT.
T.C.—What kind of nuggets are the spuds?
T.T.—Early Rose, my fine fellow.
T.C.—Some mistake, never knew Rose to rise early since Daylight Saving came.
T.T.—When will the 2.00 o’clock train come?
T.C.—One sixty.
T.T.—Will she be long?
T.C.—Oh, about seven cars.
T.T.—Does she arrive soon?
T.C.—She’s about due, there comes the conductor’s dog.
T.T.—Where will she come in, you Smart Aleck?
T.C.—Right behind the engine to-day, I think.
T.T.—How long will she wait here?
T.C.—From two to two, to two two!
T.T.—(Musingly), he thinks he’s the whistle on the locomotive.
What part of the train do you consider most dangerous?
T.C.—Dining car, answered the dyspeptic.
T.T.—What became of the other clerk who was here?
T.C.—In the asylum—one day a woman got a ticket without asking questions.
T.T.—Mercy Mister, this is terryble, give me a ticket to Moffat’s Corners.
T.C.—Can’t give you one, but I will sell it.
T.T.—Why is my train arriving so late?
T.C.—It’s just like this: the train ahead is behind, and this train was behind before besides.
T.T.—Ma’ conscience!
When they found the old gentleman towards sundown, he had wandered to the yard limits and was seated in a free reclining chair car waiting for a hair cut. On hearing the doctor’s diagnosis: “Reason undermined,” he was assisted to an ambulance, as a hoot owl settled on the bridge at midnight, and a yellow fog enveloped the sleeping city.
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A DESERVED REBUKE
Speaking of “Back talk” at a railwaymen’s dinner, President Howard Elliott of the New Haven Lines, expressed sympathy for an employee temporarily under unbearable conditions and explained that when the conductor was punching tickets a man said to him, with a nasty sneer—“You have a lot of wrecks on this road, don’t you?” “Oh no,” said the conductor, “You’re the first I’ve seen for some time”.
Philadelphia Bulletin
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ONCE WAS ENOUGH
A sweet young thing who had not traveled much, was riding on a high speed interurban trolley noted for its accidents.
“How deliciously dangerous”, she was thinking as the conductor approached. “How often do you kill a person on this road?” she enquired. The ticket collector smiled and as he pocketed her coupon he said, “Just once, Miss”.
Electric Service Magazine
THE TRANSPORTATION CLUB OF TORONTO
Although the members of this Club carefully safeguard their Death Benefit Fund and derive profit from periodical addresses delivered to them by qualified speakers on topics of specific or general interest, they have realized that all work with trains or traffic affairs and no play, is an unwise plan of campaign. Until war time exigencies discouraged the practice, the Transportation Club indulged in an Annual June outing.
Some incidents—not posed for—photographed at Jackson’s Point Picnic.