UNITED STATES PASSENGER CREWS INTO CANADA

[NP Eddie]

I am a retired NP-BN-BNSF  clerk from Northtown (Minneapolis) and a railfan.

Did the US passenger train and engine crews take their into Canada?

Two runs out of Minnesota were the GN's Winnipeg Limited and the NP's trains 13 & 14 from Fargo to Manitoba Jct, MN and north to Pembina, ND and Winnipeg.

I am sure that the GN's  freight and passenger crews handled their trains from Seattle to Vancouver, BC. and return.

Ed Burns

[rcdrye]

This is a good example of "it depends".  To some extent it depended on division boundaries.  It's also important to keep in mind that border crossing rules were a lot simpler in the "old days",

If GN had a division point at Pembina (and I think it did), then the Pembina-Winnipeg crew could have been from either end.  GN and NP trains to Winnipeg sometimes were, and sometimes weren't, operated as Midland Railway of Manitoba trains depending on a bunch of things that probably made sense to the lawyers at the time.

Michigan Central crews worked from Detroit and Buffalo to St. Thomas, Ontario, and there may have been some St. Thomas based crews in the mix. 

The crew arrangenments in the northeast were all over the map. D&H trains changed to Naperville Jct. crews at Rouses Point, NY, but the engines ran through.  Rutland trains operating to Montreal used Rutland power with Alburgh VT crews that ran over CN from Rouses Pt. NY to Montreal or St. Lambert (1943 Central station electrification required engine change).  CV trains on the Cantic sub (today's NECR) got CN crews (and sometimes CN power) at St. Albans, VT but St. Hyacinthe Sub trains to St. Johns PQ kept CV crews, and CP changed crews at Newport VT on the Boston-Montreal trains that entered Canada there and later crossed and recrossed the border at Richford VT.

Soo's Winnipeger became a de facto CP train at Emerson Jct. When Soo got its FP7s in 1950 the diesels came off at Thief River Falls until the mechanics of taking the engines across the border were worked out. CP trains operating across Maine had a division point at Brownsville Jct. 

[cx500]

Passenger engine crews generally had the same crew districts as freight crews.  Where the railroad itself changed at the border I believe the engine crew would also change.  Since the Midland of Manitoba north of the boundary into Winnipeg was a subsidiary of the US roads it might have counted as one railroad. 

The passenger train crews are more complicated, since there were two very different groups and it is not clear which you may be thinking of. 

The basic crew will be the conductor, one or more trainmen and a baggageman.  While on the same railroad they often had longer runs, two subdivisions being quite typical.  It will also depend on where the crew changes occurred further south.  But I don't know the answer, except I agree with you about the Seattle-Vancouver run.

The second part of a passenger train crew were folks in the sleeping, dining and parlor car service (some of which might be Pullman staff).  These would stay with the train for extended distances and almost certainly would complete the trip across the border with their assigned equipment.

John 

[NP Eddie]

ALL:

The responses to my question jogged my memory.

About 1968, I had an afternoon job checking the inbound SOO interchange to the NP at the Northtown "D" Yard. After the transfer was by the rollby, I would to go the SOO's Shoreham Yard in Northeast Minneapolis for the train list and waybills.

I met a SOO Switch Foreman named Pittman (I don't remember his first name) who told me he worked the SOO's Winnipeger from St. Paul, MN to Noyes, MN. Mr. Pittman said it was a long run, but he made a lot of money in passenger service.f

Ed Burns

[efftenxrfe]

The NYC's Chicagoan, No 90 if the grey matter doesn't betray, I seem to remember,  w/o notes of the early 60's, went from Detroit to Buffalo with one crew---via St. Thomas  Ontario.....

Geographically  absurdly off the subject, but  in ensemble:

There's a bunch of Mexican border crossings and at least one pair had US crews working through the country. San Diego and Arizona and SD&AEastern crews ran from SD to El Centro, traversing the entire Tijuana and Tecate Rwy, actually SCOP,  in Espanol (Tilda deficient Keyboard.)

El Centro to Yuma crews on the way- long- gone Inter-California did the same: into and out of Mexico with SP crews.

There were border crossings (Calexico-Mexicali-Benjamin Hill, Nogales-SP de Mex.-FCPacifico....somewhere south of Tombstone.....Juarez-El Paso....and more along the Rio Grande to salt water) that might warrent a study of how it was done, customs, immigration, import-export,  crewing transfer jobs, the atmospherics of a desert-hot to cool-down night, the side-winders, coyote concerts.....Mariachi, Norten(i)o, gestating Tex-Mex.....wonderful music...railroading, Way out There, sons of the pioneers, One More Ride.

Way out There...One more Ride