Flintlock76 Flintlock76 wrote the following post 2 days ago: BEAUSABRE BTW, Newfounland was still a colony in WW2 and didn't join the Dominion until IIRC 1948. Exactly. In fact Newfoundland is (was) the senior British colony in North America, going back to 1595.
And...being loyal British subjects... they drove on the left there until 1947 ( more than two decades after BC, NB,NS,and PEI changed over)
It IS Dominion Day.
Merci.
BEAUSABREBTW, Newfounland was still a colony in WW2 and didn't join the Dominion until IIRC 1948.
Exactly. In fact Newfoundland is (was) the senior British colony in North America, going back to 1595.
Flintlock76 The Canadians were pretty snobbish to the locals anyway.
"Newfies" are Canada's version of West Virginians in the States.
BTW, Newfounland was still a colony in WW2 and didn't join the Dominion until IIRC 1948.
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The "Zombies" as they were called sound like the Canadian troops sent to garrison Newfoundland during the war. According to my late mother-in-law, a Newfoundland native, they were the dregs of the Canadian Army and the Newfoundland girls wouldn't date them. The Canadians were pretty snobbish to the locals anyway. Canadians in the Royal Navy were a different situation though, the girls believed if you were RN you were all right.
Mind you, I'm NOT disparaging those Canadians who went overseas to fight, they performed splendidly! They aimed to kick a$$ and did.
DaylinerFour years later, Canada was at war, and men like these were travelling across the country in troop trains.
And, if they didn't volunteer to serve overseas, they spent the war safe in Canada. These "Zombies", as they were contemptuously known, got a terribly rude awakening in 1943. The law said, if you were drafted and didn't volunteer to fight overseas, you could only be used for the defense of territory in North America deemed essential to Canada's defense. A brigade of them, along with US troops, found themselves part of the invasion of Kiska in the Aleutians (part of North America), which had been occupied by the Japanese. Fortunately for them, the only Japanese found on Kiska were four dogs, abandoned by the Japanese garrison when it was evacuated under cover of darkness and the Aleutians' nototoriously thick fog about a month before. Eventually, late in the war, the Canadian government rescinded the policy and about 4000 Zombies were shipped to Europe (there were many desertions before embarcation - the same as had been noted with the Kiska expedition) as replacements for casualties but very few saw any combat.
This is likely part of the "On-to-Ottawa Trek" of 1935. During the Depression, unemployed single men in western Canada were housed in relief camps. In 1934 they began protesting the pay and conditions in those camps, and when no action was taken to address their concerns, they organized and determined to take their grievances directly to the federal cabinet in Ottawa. They travelled, as you see in the OP photo, on the tops of boxcars.
The trek got as far as Regina, Saskatchewan, when it was stopped by the RCMP--ending in a riot that started when the police attacked the Trekkers and their supporters.
Four years later, Canada was at war, and men like these were travelling across the country in troop trains.
UlrichThe 30s was a bad time for stockholders as well. Possibly some of them were riding the rods along with everyone else.
"Once I had a railroad, made it run, made it race against time.
"Once I had a railroad, now it's done. Brother can you spare a dime?"
Convicted One Flintlock76 Railroad people would sometimes turn a sympathetic blind eye to the 'boes, as the saying goes "There but for the grace of God go I!" but not to the last two categories. I guess what appears to be a market driven descision to some, might appear to be a conspiracy against the stockholders stuck paying the bill?
Flintlock76 Railroad people would sometimes turn a sympathetic blind eye to the 'boes, as the saying goes "There but for the grace of God go I!" but not to the last two categories.
I guess what appears to be a market driven descision to some, might appear to be a conspiracy against the stockholders stuck paying the bill?
Translate those in the picture to those in the trailer found in San Antonio this week. People trying to better their lives....there but for the grace of God .... Indeed!
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
The 30s was a bad time for stockholders as well. Possibly some of them were riding the rods along with everyone else.
Flintlock76Railroad people would sometimes turn a sympathetic blind eye to the 'boes, as the saying goes "There but for the grace of God go I!" but not to the last two categories.
Good Lord, I hope that was a drag freight that didn't go more than 15 miles an hour, any faster and the wind would have blown those poor guys off!
To elaborate on what Beausabre said, hobos were migrant workers, or guys looking for work anywhere they could find it. Then there were tramps (also called yeggs), petty thieves (or worse) riding the rails looking for easy marks and typically one step ahead of the law. Bottom of the barrel were the bums, basically scavengers not interested in work.
Railroad people would sometimes turn a sympathetic blind eye to the 'boes, as the saying goes "There but for the grace of God go I!" but not to the last two categories.
The steel boxcar in the middle was built in the late '20s, so it's at least post-1929.
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
From the 1930s..it wasn't just farm workers but workers in general who were on the move to find any kind of work anywhere.
Technology and modern farming techniques have eliminated the need for that much labor in the planting, cultivating, harvesting and transportation of current agricultural products.
Suspect the picture dates from the Depression era.
Not sure of where or when this shot of an army of hoboes was taken, but I would guess somewhere on the CP in one of the prairie provinces in the Thirties or Forties - anyone able to help?
Many Bo's were migrant agricultural workers (NOT bums - which were guys who didn't work. If you got a meal from a farmer's wife or got to sleep in the barn, you did stuff like splitting firewood for her), moving north in the Spring to work Spring planting, then moving south with the harvest. I would guess the harvest is over here (boxcars are likely loaded with grain), so everyone is moving south in search of (literally) greener pastures, The law, both the cinder dicks and ruralistas, are tolerating it the local economy and, hence the railroad, needs the labor periodically and they are now moving on to the next area that needs them. They will eventually end up in places like Florida to help pick the citrus crop, before heading north again next Spring.
Modern liability lawyers are either licking their chops and wishing for a time machine or lying on the floor with a heart attack after seeing this picture.
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