How inventive use of a stick saved the day aboard The Canadian

I returned on Tuesday (Feb. 23) from my second journey (first eastbound) aboard VIA Rail Canada’s The Canadian, North America’s finest passenger train and its last transcontinental streamliner. I chose this particular late February eastbound run from Vancouver to Toronto at the recommendation of a friend who traveled a year ago with an informal group of railroaders who call themselves the Moonlighters. The name comes from the fact that the trip is timed to coincide with the full moon, which allows the scenery to be viewed in full moonlight from any of the train’s three or more dome cars with lights dimmed. (That I was able to take advantage of one of VIA Rail’s frequent 50% off sales, combined with the very favorable (to Americans) exchange rate between the US and Canadian dollars, also aided my decision.)

The travel group has been organized for the past several years by Bill Schafer, a former Southern Railway manager and Norfolk Southern strategic planner who is now Development Director for the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum (which organized and provided equipment and volunteers for many of NS’s 21st Century Steam excursions). (His cousin is Passenger Train Journal editor Mike Schafer.) The group is comprised of current and former executives of both Class I and short line freight railroads in the US and Canada, as well as Amtrak and some commuter railroads, who share a passion for the industry and an enjoyment of train travel. For two of my friends (who are around my age) and I who are starting our careers either in the industry or as advocates for its growth and development, this meant many fascinating and educational conversations that went well into the night, while watching Canada roll by in the moonlight.

Each year’s Moonlighters trip has been marked by a particular memorable story of a momentary calamity that befell the train, and this year was no exception. For the past two years, host Canadian National Railway dispatchers have treated the Moonlighters’ train particularly well, in contrast to the average Canadian run which is characterized by multi-hour delays on a mostly single-track line shared with constant freight traffic. Last year’s eastbound was leaving most stations on-time or early — until an incident occurred in Hornepayne, Ontario involving a senior Canadian government official who was on board. This delayed the train two hours. And after all of that, the train & engine crew reached their legal hours of service limit within a mile of arriving at Toronto Union Station, causing another hour's delay while a new crew was located to take the train its final several paces.

This year, VIA train 2, having left Clearwater, BC on-time, was beginning to climb towards the Continental Divide in southeastern British Columbia. It was a sunny and unusually warm Saturday morning, and whatever snow was still covering the ground was slowly melting. While rounding a curve hugging the side of a slope, the train came to an abrupt halt. Through a fellow passenger who had a scanner, we found out that there had been a loss of air brake pressure. The locomotive engineers, later assisted by a two-man CN crew who came from behind in a track work vehicle, determined that a piece of ice from a rock slide had broken off what was later found to be the No. 8 vent valve beneath the forward Skyline dome car, creating a massive leak in the brake pipe train-line. Vent valves are integral components of the air brake systems of cars and locomotives; they ensure that an emergency brake application propagates throughout the train. 

The engineer, who was in the locomotive cab, was heard over the radio doubting that sufficient air pressure could be regained under the circumstances. But several minutes later, his voice perked up as he reported that the pressure meter was beginning to rise quickly. He determined that there was sufficient and stable enough pressure to at least make it to the next stop, Blue River, where VIA Rail mechanical people could look at it. At Blue River, they decided it was good to go. We made it to Valemount a little over two hours behind schedule.

We soon discovered that our trip was salvaged by the ingenuity of a fellow passenger and Moonlighter. Allen Rider, recently retired Manager of Locomotive Engineering for Norfolk Southern. He had walked all the way (14 cars) forward from the Park car, inside the train, and offered to assist the crew. Working with the second VIA engineer, he snapped a branch from a nearby tree. With the aid of a few emergency tools, they sized the stick and drove it into the hole where the valve used to be. They then added several rounds of duct tape to keep the 110 pounds per square inch of air pressure from blowing the stick back out.  It still leaked, but held well enough to maintain sufficient pressure for a successful brake test. At the Valemount stop, a VIA mechanical crewman from Jasper boarded the train after determining that the impromptu repair was holding. We continued at-speed to Jasper, where the vent valve was replaced within minutes of our arrival. Rider shared this photo, dubbing his fix “Norfolk Southern ingenuity.”

Photos by Allen Rider.

There were no further incidents causing delay, and with astonishingly favorable dispatching and ample padding in the schedule, we were able to make up most of the delay by Edmonton, and were early arriving and on-time leaving Saskatoon the next morning. Our punctuality continued the rest of the trip, and train 2 arrived in Toronto Union Station a full hour ahead of schedule on Tuesday morning.