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2nd order of Equipment for the Canadian

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2nd order of Equipment for the Canadian
Posted by Miningman on Saturday, May 13, 2017 1:16 AM

A little-known fact is a planned second order for additional Budd-build equipment. 
Details are unconfirmed but 57 cars are thought to have been planned to finish re-equipping 
The Dominion as well as The Atlantic Limited. A later addition would have been for 
five parlor cars likely for popular Montreal - Ottawa service. Totalling 62 cars. 

Order was to include coaches (52 smoker seats and 16 regular seats) 
and dining cars (48 seats) as well as two new car types: 
Buffet-Parlor 29 seats. Alternative 26 seats and 2 luggage elevators. 
Dome-Sleeper 4 double bedroom (connecting), 4 bedroom (lower berth only), 
4 roomettes and 24 seats in dome. 

More baggage-dormitory cars were also planned and not in second document
likely because they were identical to existing cars. 

Note: Individual quantities unknown. 
Also unknown is names for first class cars. 

Note: The new dome-sleeper was added as it had been determined 
there was too little dome seating on The Canadian! 

For Tourist class consideration of ordering Budd Siesta coaches sleeping 32 (similar to Pullman Slumbercoaches) was not included since tourist class travel was declining and uncertainty of its future resulted in the decision not to order them. 
Instead, 22 heavyweight G class sleeping cars were modernized and designated as U class cars. 
A grand total of 80 additional cars would have been slightly less than 50% of the original order. 


Official Budd Compnay diagrams and elevations 
CPHA collection 

Coach 52 smoker seats and 16 regular seats
(reverse of normal division) 
(Note: First order was 24 and 36 leg rest seats) 

Dining 48 seats 

Buffet-Parlor 29 seats 
(option 26 seats plus 2 baggage elevators) 

Dome-Sleeper 
4 double bedroom (connecting), 
4 bedroom (lower berth only), 
4 roomettes and 24 seats in dome.
(Note; same as NP's North Coast Limited


 

 

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Posted by ROBERT WILLISON on Saturday, May 13, 2017 6:17 PM

Interesting, when was the time frame? Were the plans shelved because of declining traffic and revenue?

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Posted by Miningman on Saturday, May 13, 2017 7:21 PM

The original equipment as follows.

Stainless Steel equipment 

The largest order of passenger equipment ever placed by the CPR (June 1953) was also the largest order 
ever received by the Budd Company of Philadelphia for stainless steel passenger equipment. 
77 cars were for The Canadian and 96 cars for The Dominion totalling 173 cars. 

Roster

1. 18 Park Cars. 1 drawing room, 3 double bedroom, lounge observation dome car. 
. . . . . obs. lounge 13 seats, mural lounge 12 seats, scenic dome 24 seats. 

2. 18 Skyline Cars. Dome coach coffee-shop. 24 seats dome, 26 seats coach. 23 seats coffee-shop. 

3. 18 Dining room cars seating 48.

4. 18 Baggage-Dormitory cars. Sleeping 15 crew and 2 stewards. 18 tons baggage.

5. 42 Manor sleeping cars. 4 roomettes - 5 double bedrooms - 1 compartment - 4 open sections.

6. 29 Chateau sleeping cars. 8 duplex roomettes - 1 drawing room - 3 double bedrooms - 4 open sections.

7. 30 coaches. 60 seats with full length leg rests. 
____

173 cars

 

The Canadian was inaugurated April 24, 1955. 

The faster schedule (70 hours) of The Canadian with fewer stops meant that only seven sets of equipment were required 
between Montreal and Vancouver (2,881 miles) plus two smaller sets between Toronto and Sudbury. Thus, 18 cars. 

There were no spare cars! Instead, an elaborate system of preventative maintenance was carried out 
in segments during layovers at Montreal and Toronto. Vancouver doing only failures. 

There was sufficient equipment for The Canadian as well as partial equipment for The Dominion.

A late decision saw rebuilding of 22 Tourist sleeping cars to provide more economical accommodations. 
These heavyweight steel cars were given stainless steel cladding to blend in better and renamed U class. 
This provided two cars assigned per train set plus four spares.

Answer to Robert Willison:

The Canadian was an immediate hit with the public and remained well patronized right up to the mid sixties, about 10 years. It was a pretty exclusive train in its day. It was the drop off and eventual discontinuance of the Dominion and the Atlantic that made a lot of similiar equipment available. 

Guess we will never really know how close they came to picking up the phone and placing the order. The Boardroom had a tough call to make by '56-'57. 

Even on it's inaugural run I remember a quote by the President and CEO of the CPR, ran in Trains Magazine, stating that even if the train was 100% sold every trip it would lose money. It was followed by some quick dollar quote on maximum revenue per trip verses the cost. As in the States, once the Trans-Canada Hwy was complete and airlines became the future things dropped off quickly. CPR gave it's passenger service a real good go of things right up until 1960. They ran passenger service up every podunk branchline and inaugurated new trains during the fifities. With the end of the steam era came the end of branch line trains. Almost all those never dieselized, when the steam ended so did the passenger service.  The second Trans -Con train "The Dominion" was discontinued in Feb. 1966. The very popular and well patronized Chicago Express was dropped in '61. The "board" in the center of Union Station went from dozens and dozens of trains to 3 overnight. Just like that. All that was left was the train to NYC, which became a truncated RDC to Buffalo, a RDC run to Havelock that was shoulder to shoulder packed because it was used as a commuter train by the folks, and The Canadian. Canadian National picked up the slack and really gave passenger service a big go of it all through the sixties and to the mid seventies, but that's another story. 

That equipment shown above is still running, less a few wrecked. 

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Posted by Miningman on Sunday, May 14, 2017 2:22 PM

Fixed/edited error above. The Dominion was discontinued in Feb 1966. 

The Dominion No.8 with its regular mixed consist of standard and stainless steel equipment. Lake Louise August 1961

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Posted by rcdrye on Monday, May 15, 2017 11:18 AM

Budd's relatively standardized configurations kept them in the hunt for new orders pretty late in the game.  The proposed 4-4-4 dome sleepers would have required little more than side panel changes from the NP order.  The Parlors were most likely near-knockoffs of PRR "Congressional" cars.

The "Dominion" often carried long strings of borrowed Pullmans, either via Winnipeg or Moose Jaw, delivered by the Soo Line's Soo-Dominion and Mountaineer.  1960 was the last year for the Mountaineer, 1962 for the Soo-Dominion name, and through cars via Winnipeg ended entirely after the 1963 summer season.

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Posted by ghCBNS on Monday, May 22, 2017 1:38 PM

Miningman

The Canadian was an immediate hit with the public and remained well patronized right up to the mid sixties, about 10 years. It was a pretty exclusive train in its day. It was the drop off and eventual discontinuance of the Dominion and the Atlantic.......

 

 The “Atlantic Limited” was not discontinued.....but became a mostly Budd Stainless Steel equipped train including a Skyline Dome Coffee-shop it kept until VIA took over and extended the Atlantic to Halifax in October 1979.

 

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Posted by Miningman on Monday, May 22, 2017 2:14 PM

The Dominion was discontinued, the Atlantic was down to a single E8 and four cars with infrequent use of a dome car, so that is what I mean by diminished. VIA took it over in '79 and Trudeau killed it in '81. 

The Mulroney government restored service '85 until discontinuance again in '94. 

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Posted by ghCBNS on Monday, May 22, 2017 2:57 PM

Miningman

The Dominion was discontinued, the Atlantic was down to a single E8 and four cars with infrequent use of a dome car..............

The use of the a Dome Car was not “infrequent” and nearly always in the consist until VIA took over in '79.

A Skyline had been regularly assigned beginning in '67-'68 and after the Quebec City and Ottawa conventional trains were replaced by RDCs.....those Skylines that had the non-swivel Parlour seats in the forward end were re-assigned to the Atlantic as Lounge seating. After CP stopped turing the consist in Saint John....flip-over seats from old commuter cars were installed in the Dome so seating was always facing in the direction of travel.

The Atlantic to Halifax from '79 to '81 used smooth-side CN equipment and no dome...... but after the Atlantic was restored in June 1985 it was assigned a 'Park Car' Dome Observation.

 

 

 

NDG
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Posted by NDG on Monday, May 22, 2017 4:04 PM

Thank You.

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Posted by Miningman on Monday, May 22, 2017 4:57 PM

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Posted by Miningman on Monday, May 22, 2017 5:07 PM

How about a dozen or so of these^ ...nice in grey and maroon...actually have an A-B-A in N Scale, 2nd A in script. 

Oh well, didn't happen. 

Glad to see you are up and about NDG..how's the tooth. Tried sending a private email through the personal settings but do not know if you received it. 

NDG
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Posted by NDG on Monday, May 22, 2017 8:59 PM

Life goes on, btwn Funerals.

 

Thank You.

 

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Posted by Miningman on Monday, May 22, 2017 10:50 PM

NDG- You have several friends here on the forum as well ...So don't forget about that or us! Private email me anytime you want. I'm sure RME would be glad to hear from you as well. 

Re: Cut and Paste the image of the PA.

If you are using an Apple iPad or anything with a touchscreen all you have to do is press your finger on the image. A window will pop up asking either "save" or "copy". Press copy with your finger. Then you can go to wherever you want to paste the image. Hold your finger on the screen and a window will pop up ...press paste and bingo there is the image. 

If there is text you want to save hold your finger anywhere in the text. It will turn blue with 2 little bars that you can expand with your fingers by scolling with the little ball image that is on top of the bar. When you have outlined what you would like to copy then hold down the outlined blue area with your finger and press "copy" when it appears. Then again go to where you want to paste it. Hold your finger on the screen and press on the word "paste". This one takes a little bit of patience at first, but an acquired skill comes fairly quickly. 

I will punt the ball to a Windows user for use on that system because it has a bit more to explain, although it is not too hard at all. 

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Posted by Miningman on Monday, May 22, 2017 11:38 PM

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Posted by Miningman on Monday, May 22, 2017 11:41 PM

RED BARNS

Known officially as a model SD40-2F, this locomotive was built by General Motors of Canada (known as GMD or GMDD, closed in 2012) at their plant in London Ontario and was one of twenty five of that series constructed in 1988/89. They were numbered 9000-9024. Now languishing in the dead lines at Ogden shops in Calgary, this unit was only recently retried, in mid December to be exact. Other members of the class have or will see a similar fate, while the best of the bunch will continue to soldier on for the time being.

 What makes it stand out is that it was built with a full cowl body. For a time this arrangement was quite popular in Canada with other carriers, but only sampled once by the CPR. When compared with a typical hood unit, the cowl style handles snowy conditions better. For a time, starting in the early 1980s all the way to the early 1990s all the Canadian National Railways new locomotives, those built by the Montreal Locomotive Works (aka Bombardier, the originator of the design), and those from GMD and GE, were all built in this form. Other smaller Canadian carriers, BC Rail for one, also rostered cowl units, but in this case from General Electric.

CPR however seemed quite content with the standard hood units except for this one order. In the end, there were some severe limitations to the design and it eventually it fell out of favour. The tapered side was hard to see out when backing the unit up, it made maintenance more challenging and the initial cost to purchase was higher.

This style of locomotive was never sold to a US railway, although CPR’s could be seen travelling in there.

 

GMD SD40-2F
CP Rail 9011.jpg
CP 9011 in Chalk RiverOntario
 
 
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Posted by ghCBNS on Tuesday, May 23, 2017 4:01 AM

Miningman
The Mulroney government restored service '85 until discontinuance again in '94. 

The Mulroney Government made even more drastic cuts to VIA in January 1990 than Trudeau had in ’81 and the Atlantic just barely survived….now as a tri-weekly train.

 VIA undertook a program to HEP the former CP fleet in the late ‘80s and the Atlantic was fully converted in January 1993. It was now a Stainless Steel train resembling the Canadian complete with a Skyline Dome and Park Car. The  consists were interchangeable with the Ocean…. alternating one day via Saint John and Campbellton the next.

The Atlantic lasted until December 15, 1994 when CP abandoned their line across Maine. That track survives today as a shortline operation but can you imagine the logistic today if the Atlantic was still running with 2 border crossings each way when you consider the delays the Adirondack and Maple Leaf encounter  with 1 crossing.  

 

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Posted by rcdrye on Tuesday, May 23, 2017 6:20 AM

NDG
They had to get Es for the Boston trains as B&M already had E7s and it would look uncool to hand off the Limiteds to lowly old STEAM off 'Short Line' B&M back in the day.

The E's were bought as part of a pool agreement with B&M, used on the Allouette and Red Wing, with units running through from Boston to Montreal.  The same thing had been done in steam days, with CP 4-6-0s and 4-6-2s running to Boston.  The pool was dropped around the time the Allouette was rerouted via White River Jct from its traditional route via Plymouth.  It was later re-equipped with RDCs, which were also pooled.

NDG
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Posted by NDG on Tuesday, May 23, 2017 2:11 PM

 

Thank You.

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Posted by RME on Tuesday, May 23, 2017 4:44 PM

I thought "Fernie" was one of the four elegant observation cars built for the 1907 Soo-Spokane service (#752).  Here is a page with some information.

Fernie shows as retired in 1933, and perhaps gone by 1939; if there is a "B&M connection" it might be the Alouette/Red Wing (as mentioned by rcdrye) after 1926, but I'm not sure a 1907 Barney & Smith car would run in those trains.  I don't show any indication B&M bought "Fernie" after retirement from CPR, but I'll continue looking.

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Posted by Miningman on Tuesday, May 23, 2017 10:53 PM

NDG- "The latter train passing by the end of the street where I am now."

Revelstoke? 

NDG
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Posted by NDG on Wednesday, May 24, 2017 1:40 AM


Long ago.

Thank You.

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Posted by rcdrye on Wednesday, May 24, 2017 6:40 AM

The Red Wing, CPR and B&M's joint Montreal-Boston train (via Wells River VT and Plymouth NH) carried a CPR sleeper - unusual in joint CP trains that ran in the US, with the exception of Soo Line trains.  Fernie was a relatively modern steel underframe car that B&M would have had no trouble using.  By 1933 traffic on both CP and B&M would have dropped enough that steel cars would be available for all assignments. The Red Wing sleeper was rerouted via White River Jct around 1933 (on the combined Red Wing and B&M/CV/CN New Englander) and may have become a Pullman, since the B&M/MEC/CP/CN Gull (Boston-Halifax) lost its Boston-St. John NB CP-owned sleeper about that time.  All of B&M's Boston-Montreal overnight services lost their sleepers early, the Mount Royal around 1930, the Red Wing around 1946 and the New Englander around 1950.

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Posted by RME on Wednesday, May 24, 2017 8:24 AM

NDG
I know not the connections Btwn the Soo and the B&M and CPR.

My opinion 'all along' is that there is no connection between the Soo and the B&M except, circumstantially, through CPR 'joint operations'.

A question for someone like rcdrye is whether cars owned in Canada that operate 'through' into the United States on a regular basis need special features or inspections.  That might account for the use of the 1907 cars in later over-the-border service.

Meanwhile, I have seen a picture of Fernie in service, I think during the WWI years, in strictly CPR service (which matches my general understanding of the 'donut hole' for these cars between the cessation of the fancy Soo-Spokane train and the start of the Alouette/Red Wing in 1926).  It might be interesting to know what trains got these and the "V" Pullmans in those intervening years.  (I will try to find that picture -- it is in one of those 'anthology' books like The Lore Of The Train, I think...

If you still have the pictures, I'd like to see some of the details of how those cars were framed.

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Posted by rcdrye on Thursday, May 25, 2017 6:49 AM

The only "real" connection between the B&M and the Soo was the brief operation of a through car from Boston to Minneapolis/St. Paul via Montreal and Sault Ste. Marie in the 1890s.  That route may have predated CP's control of the Soo.  Not sure if it was a CP sleeper or Pullman, but odds are it was CP.

CP passenger cars regularly crossed the border.  There weren't any particular inspection requirements other than normal suitability for interchange.  Amtrak has borrowed equipment from VIA in recent years, as well as running its own equipment to Canada on three routes. Locomotives, on the other hand, were watched by the customs authorities, I guess to make sure they weren't being smuggled across illegally.  CP had its own cross-border operations, as did CN, GN, and Michigan Central.  Soo Line, B&M and Maine Central units regularly operated into Canada on jointly operated trains.

A more interesting divide was sleeper operation.  Soo Line hosted CP cars, ran its own, and participated in at least one Pullman "Line" with the Milwaukee Road.  CP operated Pullman sleepers with B&M/MEC and CN (Gull) and New York Central (various Chicago-Toronto-Montreal trains) and probably others.

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Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, May 28, 2017 10:17 AM

Canadians can almost have their cake in the dining car and eat it too since Canadian National tested two PA1s which were painted in the attractive green and gold scheme.  Rebuilt to PA2s, they were sold to Miss Katy.

The worse sin committed since Adam and Eve were evicted from the Garden of Eden was taking The Canadian off CP and putting it onto CN rails.  VIA should return it to the CPR and create a new train for the CNR route.  Paint power for The Canadian in maroon and gray for Pete's* sake while you're at it!

*By the way, who is Pete? 

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Posted by RME on Sunday, May 28, 2017 11:52 AM

Trinity River Bottoms Boomer
By the way, who is Pete?

Probably a fellow who formerly went by the name of Simon bar-Jona; an associate of that known radical Oily Josh...

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Posted by Miningman on Sunday, May 28, 2017 1:45 PM

There is nothing stopping a private company from purchasing new equipment, say "Superliner type" and cutting a deal with the CPR to run a transcon train on that route but do not hold your breath for that one. CPR Stations en route have been converted into Casino's, such as in Regina, so the problems mount.

VIA Rail has nothing but politics and no money so forget that. There would be 200 groups from farmers to climate change folks, every social advocacy group and everything in between not to mention the provincial governments, all howling and demanding equal monies, their mouths wide open like chicks in a nest.

As for VIA asking the CPR permission to use the maroon and grey scheme I would think that CP would harshly turn that one down. They would not want to be so besmirched, and they use it for their corporate executive train. 

Of course CP could do this themselves...ha ha.ha,ha,ha. 

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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, May 29, 2017 5:47 AM

To coin a TV show my mother watched in the dark ages of black and white: Let's Make a Deal: Canadian Pacific with Rocky Mountaineer.  Would that work?  Depots and stations need not be constructed on a grand scale either! 

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Posted by NP Eddie on Monday, May 29, 2017 1:44 PM

ALL:

The following is from Dave Klepper:

"On the Classic Trains Forum, the 2nd Canadian car order, there is a post that says that the Boston Montreal overnight Red Wing, B&M-CP, lost its sleepers in 1946. This is not true. I rode overnight in a sleeper on this train in 1959 on my way to ride the last of the Montreal streetcars  and then overnight to Quebec to ride last-day operations and the post-last-day fan-trip of CN's Quebec-St. Joachim interurban. I do not remember what kind of car it was or whether I had a lower berth or a roomette. I do remember that Russ Jackson and I shared a double-bedroom on the CP overnight Montreal-Quebec after a day with the Montreal streetcars. (Montreal North, Milen, and Cartiaville were the three lines still running.) And that there was still some steam on the CP, watching a beautiful CP Pacific being turned on the turntable at the CP roundhouse not far from the interurban terminal in Quebec."

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Posted by Miningman on Monday, May 29, 2017 3:54 PM

Cape Churchill on The Red Wing at B&M North Station, Boston. June 6, 1954 
Lawson Hill/John Hutchins Collection 

Diagram of floor plan Cape cars. 
CPR Circular 62-10 Assignment of Space. Old Time Trains Archives

 

 

 

Glad to hear Dave is OK.

 

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