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

by D. B. Hanna

If there had been anything like the ancient brand of political control, or profit, in the Government’s railway dispositions, what would the Cabinet’s attitude have been? It would have said “Keep your expenditure down to the lowest possible limit, not giving first regard to the foundation for future commercial success. Charge as much of your expenses as possible to capital account, to keep deficits down, so that we may make the best possible immediate showing to the voters.”

The Government did nothing of the kind. The Board went to the Cabinet with a big, hard, forbidding business proposition, which only the lapse of years could justify. To its enduring honor, be it said, the Government courageously faced the situation with a kindred spirit; found the money, and said never a syllable about the political effects of so much courage, and so much danger.

Though the Board exhibited such splendid courage, let it not be supposed that there was anything exhilarating about our job. After all it is a heart-breaking affliction to have to go on month after month with the results of ceaseless endeavour written monotonously in red ink. To any Scotch soul, the continued outlay of more than a dollar to earn a dollar was bound to feel very much like predestinated doom. There was no escape from the experience in the present. Without it there was no hope for the future. Thousands of miles of railway were on the verge of dilapidation. To allow the process to go farther would be to invite the permanent disaster which we were determined, if possible, to avoid.

In trying to give to the general public an intelligible account of a railway administration, there is always the danger of fogging the story with statistics—of making it impossible to see the wood for the trees. I am anxious to make it clear that the Board of Directors, of whom I had the honour to be the head, approached and performed their duty in a fashion which became the dignity of their employer—the Canadian nation—and reflected high distinction upon themselves.

From our first inspection of the property, from Sydney and Halifax to Vancouver and Prince Rupert, and from our study of the economic conditions affecting the expansion of revenue, we evolved a definite, coherent policy. I take the liberty of repeating what I endeavoured to express in a memorandum which I read to the Select Standing Committee on National Railways and Shipping, on April 20th, 1921. Speaking of the general supervision exercised by the Board, and after stating that they were the directing force in the general policy of the railways, I said:

“It has been accepted by them as a definite policy that a national railway system be built up of the various lines owned by the Government, which in all respects will be the equal of the Canadian Pacific Railway in its ability to give the communities it serves good and adequate railway service. To carry out such a guiding policy it has been necessary to assume that ultimately the traffic for which the main lines of the system were laid down would be developed. Where any limiting condition exists which prevents the above-mentioned policy from being carried out it is the aim of the directors to remove such a condition. It has therefore been necessary, in addition to taking up deferred maintenance, to make a start on the progressive programme of improvements to the physical properties of the system. It is a matter of regret that much of this work, which could not further be postponed, had to be undertaken during the last two years under conditions which added largely to the expense. This situation was intensified by the fact that initial tie and bridge renewals for a long section of the main line came due within the period under review. The extra outlay which it has been necessary to make in an effort to put track and equipment in the proper physical condition is largely indicated by the increases in the principal headings of expense already set up in the statements being placed before you.

“This has involved the expenditure of money to improve locomotive terminals; extend sidings and switching yards; to put in double tracking, and improve many other operating conditions, so that a greater efficiency can be secured from the equipment now owned, and so that additional traffic may be handled without congestion. It has also been necessary to undertake some branch line extensions, particularly those on which some work has already been done prior to the war.

“Additional rolling stock and motive power has been required, large additions to the equipment being necessary to put this system in a position properly to handle its proportion of the traffic of the country.”

Because of the enormous amount of work to be done, and of the cost of materials having increased to unprecedented figures, even then—although the later increases added greatly to the burden, and wages were also much higher and labour less efficient—we had to consider carefully the order in which the programme should be carried out. We therefore, placed the works in the following order.