Moncton, perhaps, excelled all other Canadian cities in the constancy of its beneficence to soldiers going to the war. Never a troop train reached Moncton the soldiers in which did not receive hospitality from the citizens, and inspiration from the town band. On one day, for example, the band gave melodious welcome to eleven trainloads of soldiers. Many of the players were Intercolonial employes, who sacrificed much time and money to speed the departing warriors.
Halifax was blown to pieces by the war. But her recovery from the worst disaster that has befallen any Canadian city was swift and courageous. With troops going or coming, on many of the biggest steamers afloat—the Olympic was the greatest ferrier of valour the world has ever seen—there was promptitude and skill in every movement out and in. During demobilization Halifax was used in summer as it had been during hostilities, in the interest of speed. On the morning of July 9th, 1919, the Olympic docked at No. 2 pier at 7.15. The first special train, Intercolonial to Montreal, thence C.P.R., to Vancouver, pulled out at 7.40, the next at 8.02 and the third at 8.15. The eleventh special from the Olympic, brought the total of men disembarked up to 5,430, and left at five minutes past eleven.
“Fish trains” carried British gold to be minted at Ottawa, most of it to be sent to the United States to pay for war material. “Silk trains” carried Chinese coolies who were brought across the Pacific to work behind the trenches in France and Flanders. Between July, 1917, and April, 1918, sixty-seven “silk trains” entered Halifax carrying 48,708 coolies. But the coolies, even when they could be kept behind blinds, were not as interesting as the boxes of gold, of which the public knew nothing, and about which observers along the route were mystified indeed.
Warships brought to Halifax gold cargoes each worth from ten to twenty million dollars. The average sized “fish” special consisted of six baggage cars (the first as a buffer behind the engine, and accommodating guards), and a private car, in which were railway officials. At night an armed guard rode on the engine. Through a train telephone, notice was given of anybody having authority to pass through the cars.
The most precious “fish train” was of eleven cars, holding sixty-seven million dollars. A wheel tapper at a division point said to another, “I wonder what kind of a train this is, with so many baggage cars and no passengers.”
“I’ve heard it’s carrying gold,” said the other.
A discussion of the values followed, and the estimate was made that the freight was worth from ten to fifteen thousand dollars.
After all, these features of war service were only unusual variations from phases of railway management which are special to Canada. We love our climate. Canadian children would almost as soon lose the summer as do without the winter. But there are certain disadvantages in our relationship to the North Pole. It is all very well to say that things don’t grow in the winter, anyway—not even in Texas. But the longer the winter the more handfeeding of cattle there must be. A Cobalt silver mine’s ore mill must be heated in winter, as one in Mexico need not be. It takes more coal to keep up locomotive steam in forty below zero than must be burned at forty above.
Trains fall behind their schedules in very cold weather, not because of operating inefficiency, but because temperature is the mightiest tyrant in the world. Compared with the southern states, or northern England, for example, equipment must be built to subdue Jack Frost in his sharpest mood. Treble windows, asbestos-covered steam pipes beneath the cars, to withstand the piercing cold and the rushing wind, which takes the heat from them faster than the summer sun drinks dew—these are some of the factors against time-keeping when the thermometer is low.