CHAPTER IX.
Beginning the story of the Canadian Northern as a pioneer line with a staff of thirteen.
A merciful Providence, which keeps us from seeing far ahead, gave to none of the men concerned in operating the first commercial train that ran upon what was to become the Canadian Northern System, the faintest idea of what was ahead. We should have invited the Tempter to take a back seat, no doubt, if we had heard, on the fifteenth of December, 1896, when one of our two engines pulled out of Gladstone for Dauphin on the rails of the Lake Manitoba Railway and Canal Company, that, ten years from that night we should be celebrating publicly the opening of a railway from Toronto to Parry Sound, and privately the taking over, while the speeches at the Board of Trade banquet in the King Edward, were being made, of two hundred and fifty miles of the Regina-Prince Albert line from the Canadian Pacific; that our total mileage would then be over thirty-five hundred; and that, after another ten years, there would be in operation under our control nine thousand five hundred miles of railway.
But all that was in store; and, as I happened to be the only operating officer who was concerned in every phase of that extraordinary expansion, perhaps my feeling should be rather like that of the oldest inhabitant, who imagines that the former times were better than these. But, as a matter of fact, though I am the senior of all the general officers who served the Canadian Northern Railways, I am not the real patriarch of the service. To three friends of mine, who were on the line before me, I want to pay high and sincere tribute—to Billy Walker, Philip Price James, (affectionately known as “Joe Beef”) and Dad Risteen. “Joe Beef” is still on the job in Manitoba, as a locomotive engineer. Dad Risteen was our first conductor, and is still taking up tickets between Winnipeg and Somerset. But Billy Walker died when these recollections were being printed.
I joined the Lake Manitoba Railway and Canal Company only a few days before unofficial operation began; so that I had nothing more to do with the construction than to oversee the accounts receivable by the North Western for hauling material to the new base of activity.
Construction opened in the preceding April. It is part of the railway game that during construction trains must be run, and a certain transportation business be done by the contractors, as soon as some track has been laid and ballasted into a fairly safe condition. Settlers who have suffered hardships because there was no railway, and who see rails, ties and camp supplies brought in, are like the newly rich lady showing the magnificent bathroom of her latest mansion to visitors, with whose admiration she agreed, saying, “Yes, isn’t it lovely? Do you know, sometimes when I come in here to look at it I can hardly wait till Saturday night.”
So, during the building season Billy Walker was engineer and Dad Risteen the conductor of construction trains. Both had come from the C.P.R., where they were known as absolutely competent men. A proper appreciation of the values of the trade unions which have wrought certain revolutions in railway practice does not make one forget that there was a certain advantage in running a pioneer road with helpers who were blessed with the pioneer spirit, as Billy, and Joe, and Dad most excellently were.
The time table over my desk shows we operated one mixed train each way twice a week. We had running rights over the Manitoba North Western from Portage to Gladstone. The first winter, though the road was graded and rails were laid from Gladstone to Sifton, sixteen miles beyond Dauphin, we only operated beyond Dauphin once a week. To Dauphin we ran 100 miles, over our own track, and 36 miles over the North Western.