Trains of Recollection / Drawn from Fifty Years of Railway Service in Scotland and Canada, and told to Arthur Hawkes

by D. B. Hanna

We might also refer to the difficulty thus far experienced in getting support from the Canadian Australasian Line operating on the Pacific between Vancouver and Australia and New Zealand. This line has been receiving from the Dominion Government a yearly subsidy of $180,000.00, nearly $500.00 per day—in return for this expenditure by the Government its Railway should receive consideration in its passenger interchange, Canadian and Trans-Canada, but to expect such we must give a supporting rail service.

The inauguration of the daily transcontinental service following tri-weekly trains, the co-ordination of the Canadian National-Grand Trunk service between Toronto and Ottawa, and numerous other changes, have effected a much improved all-round service on Canadian National lines, which has met with many evidences of public approval. There is little doubt that the splendid service provided by these trains, with unexcelled equipment, has had a far-reaching effect in influencing the public mind in favor of the railway.

Business depression has seriously affected passenger travel all over Canada during the past year, and the volume of business shows a consequent falling off. We continue, however, to carry an increasing proportion of the competitive travel, so that the prospects for the future are distinctly encouraging.

Lack of hotel accommodation in the mountains has seriously handicapped us in increasing the long haul, incident to transcontinental travel, but as there is a prospect of this being remedied during the coming year, it will not only assist us directly in securing this class of travel in Canada, but will be a valuable medium to enable us to bring to the attention of the whole of the selling forces of the United States railways this feature of accommodation and the great attractions offered by our scenic route through the Northern Rocky Mountains, and will result in attracting additional tourist and transcontinental business.

The necessity of making known, what the Canadian National lines are and the territory they serve, also the numerous additions and changes in train service has involved a large amount of advertising during the past two years. This was necessary, not only to inform the public at large but also the transportation selling forces of other lines—particularly in the United States, in a position to direct business to us. The accumulating effect of this advertising is now beginning to be felt and is undoubtedly reflected in the proportion of competitive travel that we are securing. Steps are being taken to complete a wall map of the system which will fill a great want and when it is distributed, will have more effect in informing the Canadian public as to what constitutes the Canadian National Railways than any other medium.

DEVELOPMENT AND COLONIZATION:—It would appear necessary to emphasize the fact, that we fully realize the vital importance to Canada in general, and the Canadian National Railways in particular, of increased population. Immigration of the right kind should be fostered from Overseas, as well as from the United States, and settlement encouraged on our lines, not only in Western Canada, but in the Maritime Provinces, Quebec and Ontario.

To increase population, particularly in the agricultural districts is a necessity, and to that end, we have been working in the United States with a specialized staff at Chicago, Boston and Seattle, co-operating with our Canadian staff, and in close co-operation with the representatives in the United States, and in Canada, of the Immigration and Colonization Department of the Dominion Government.

Through the work of our Industrial and Resources Department, colonization is stimulated, and suitable people induced to settle in Canada, and acquire lands along the lines of the Canadian National Railways; adding directly to the country’s wealth, in capital, and in the plant and effects they bring with them, and as producers of increased traffic for the railway.

In order to give some idea of the activities of the Department in the United States during the period under review, it is worthy of mention that information is being sent out periodically to some forty thousand enquirers. The Chicago office alone is in correspondence with between five and six thousand prospective settlers, and has distributed some 374,000 pamphlets giving information about Canada and the Canadian National Railways.

It is estimated that over one million acres have been taken up so far in the West along the National lines, under the auspices of the Soldiers Settlement Board, and that 67 per cent. of the homesteading in 1920 and upwards of 80 per cent. in 1921, applied for in the prairie provinces were contiguous to the National lines.