Canadian Railways Operations

[Murphy Siding]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Isambard

QUOTE: Originally posted by BentnoseWillie

Not really. I don't know the CP grades offhand, but I think CN's transcontinental ruling grade is around 1.5%, thanks to the sweat of surveyors and the dynamite of engineers. [:)]

CP has to go through the Kicking Horse, which is a stiffer grade. Even with the Spiral Tunnels, the old joke still applies that CP got the scenery, but CN got the grades.

The April 2004 issue of Trains Magazine features mountain railroads (railways) and is very good reading. Pages 48 and 49 describe the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific grade profiles from Winnipeg to Vancouver. Pages 74 through 81 describe the building of the Canadian Pacific and the Canadian Northern (now part of the Canadian National) in British Columbia. Pages 82 through 89 describe life at the last pusher station on the Canadian Pacific, at Rogers BC.
[:)]

I've read that too. That, and my perception ( or misperception? ) that it seems a lot longer from the west coast to Chicago by way of Canada, makes me wonder how CN & CP compete with BNSF & UP?
I saw mention that the traffic thins out on the eastern end of Canada. What makes up most of that traffic? It would seem that Great Lakes shipping would be a big competitor for a big portion of that freight?

[selector]

The locating engineers and division chiefs for the CPR were usually Americans, BTW.

[Isambard]

QUOTE: Originally posted by BentnoseWillie

Not really. I don't know the CP grades offhand, but I think CN's transcontinental ruling grade is around 1.5%, thanks to the sweat of surveyors and the dynamite of engineers. [:)]

CP has to go through the Kicking Horse, which is a stiffer grade. Even with the Spiral Tunnels, the old joke still applies that CP got the scenery, but CN got the grades.

The April 2004 issue of Trains Magazine features mountain railroads (railways) and is very good reading. Pages 48 and 49 describe the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific grade profiles from Winnipeg to Vancouver. Pages 74 through 81 describe the building of the Canadian Pacific and the Canadian Northern (now part of the Canadian National) in British Columbia. Pages 82 through 89 describe life at the last pusher station on the Canadian Pacific, at Rogers BC.
[:)]

[Anonymous]

Nanaimo, not only do I not know how to do an auto signature, I don't even know how to call up that white box that reiterates past postings. Something I keep promising myself to do.

Allen

[jchnhtfd]

with regard to grades and operation from west coast ports to Chicago/Thunder Bay / Duluth/Superior, wherever -- it certainly is true that there is some mighty tall and spectacular scenery on both CP and CN, but the grades are quite comparable on the lines from Vancouver (and Prince Rupert) and the distances are, too.

[nanaimo73]

Ack !
Thanks Allen, but if I was that smart, I'd have a signature on my posts by now.
[:I]

[Anonymous]

A belated and deep thank-you to nanaimo. (Talk about a hot thread! Two days away and almost two pages slid by me.)

We are justifiably thrilled with nanaimo's selfless dedication to the forum. All the more so because I believe at one time nanaimo said he found Canadian RR's boring compared to US lines. He honors us. So please anyone help the guy if you can with any requests for info re the US lines. You may be bored with some domestic lines, but like nanaimo know how to find or already have superior knowledge to be shared.

Here in Chicago we have, I believe, six of the seven remaining Class One's. I have gotten way hot for the CP as of late and am really enjoying and appreciating and learning what's going on -- I'm a slow researcher but I feel linear progress and achievement and I wouldn't feel so happy without the generosity and sharing of nanaimo and so many others both here and around the world. All the more so because this is going on without hissy fits or anyone's trying to flaunt their allegedly superior world-view.

Thanks again Dale.

[BentnoseWillie]

Not really. I don't know the CP grades offhand, but I think CN's transcontinental ruling grade is around 1.5%, thanks to the sweat of surveyors and the dynamite of engineers. [:)]

CP has to go through the Kicking Horse, which is a stiffer grade. Even with the Spiral Tunnels, the old joke still applies that CP got the scenery, but CN got the grades.

[Murphy Siding]

Logic question ( it's a curse that my brain was hard wired for logic- the only noticeable outward trait is a mouth that's always saying hmmmm........?) : How do CN and CP compete with BNSF and UP in hauling container traffic from the west coast to Chicago? Wouldn't the Canadian routes be longer and more mountainous?

[jchnhtfd]

nanaimo -- I'd forgotten that editorial. It's just... wonderful! In many many ways the Canadian Pacific made Canada a reality, and the story of the construction of that railroad is truly amazing. Both it and the CN (I still prefer Canadian National, but what the heck) are astonishing systems.

Canada is a great, great country with two great railraods tying it together. And with the CN now going to the Gulf of Mexico... think about it -- from the Atlantic to the Pacific; Hudson's Bay to the Gulf... tundra (I loved that photo in Trains of a sunrise at Churchill!) to Halifax...

Oh well..

O Canada!

[nanaimo73]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding

We read about, and the luckier among us, see, American transcontinental trains zooming across the country.What about the Canadian transcontinentals? Where is most of their traffic coming from, and going to? Is there a *land bridge* type set-up, running containers from west cost to east coast?
Thanks.

Canadian Pacific is something like what BN was, hauling a lot of bulk materials. CP's busiest line is between Vancouver and Golden, in British Columbia, hauling coal, grain, sulphur and pota***o the port of Vancouver to be shipped across the Pacific.
Canadian National is more like the ATSF was, with a lot of merchandise trains.
A lot of containers come into Canada at Vancouver and are carried by CN and CP to the USA (Chicago) or central Canada (Toronto). Montreal is the busiest eastern container port with CP and CN hauling the containers to the Toronto area or Chicago.
I don't think many containers cross Canada between the Pacific and the Atlantic.

[Murphy Siding]

QUOTE: Originally posted by beaulieu

[

CN would have a lot more carload traffic in the form of lumber coming from the forests of Northern BC,

[beaulieu]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding

We read about, and the luckier among us, see, American transcontinental trains zooming across the country.What about the Canadian transcontinentals? Where is most of their traffic coming from, and going to? Is there a *land bridge* type set-up, running containers from west cost to east coast?

Thanks

Murphy Siding what you would see running on the Canadian transcontinentals is very similar to what is running on the western US transcontinentals. Exactly what you would see depends on where you are at. For example if you were in the Frazier River canyon in Britisih Columbia you would see lots of Intermodal on both CN and CP. CN would have a mix of doublestacks and trailers while CP would only have doublestacks. CN would move one loaded and one empty coal train each way while CP would move 5 or 6 each way. Each would have one Potash and one Unit Sulphur train going to the ports. Each railway would have one manifest each way. How main grain trains are running depends on the season, in season figure 2 or 3 each way on each company. There would be a cut of autoracks on a couple of the Intermodals for each company. Now if you move further east to the middle of Saskatchewan the picture changes a bit. The traffic on both railways will be higher. CN would have a lot more carload traffic in the form of lumber coming from the forests of Northern BC, CP would also have more carload traffic but it wouldn't be as dominated by lumber. Somewhere between one third and one-half of the traffic on both railways will begin or end in the US. When the grain harvest begins in the Soo Line territory but before it begins in Canada it isn't uncommon for there to be more trains to or from the US than purely Canadian business on the CP main. CP can bridge 2 or 3 Grain trains per day from the Dakotas and Minnesota to the UP at Eastgate, ID combine this with Potash also going to the UP for Portland. Traffic on both railways thins out considerably north of Lake Superior, but picks up again in the Windsor - Montreal corridor

[selector]

Too cool, by half. [8D][:D]

But, let us not forget that we used American-designed locomotives, if altered for our unique requirements. Sometime, SOMETIME... I'm gonna have a PRR J-1 on my layout.

[nanaimo73]

Trains Editor David P. Morgan wrote this 20 years ago to mark the Centennial of our last spike.

O Canada ! Oh Yes !
What can an American write about the railway scene in Canada that a Canadian has not already said ? He can set forth what railroading in that land means to us in the U.S. For it is what the Canadian assumes that awes us. Immensity, to begin with. More than 4000 route-miles, and a Sunday-to Friday train trip’s worth of immensity from Sydney, Nova Scotia, out to Vancouver, British Columbia, excluding off-shore railways of Newfoundland and Vancouver Island. To equal that journey here, you’d have to travel diagonally across the nation from northeast to southwest, say from Van Buren, Maine, to San Diego via Memphis.
And the Canadians crowned their achievement by unfurling a common banner over a true transcontinental line, as their anthem has it, From East to Western sea ! Imagine ! One name-Canadian Pacific Railway-on letterboards, locomotive tenders, conductors’ hats, tickets, from the St. Lawrence River to the Pacific Ocean . . . as of 9:30 a.m., November 7, 1885, when the final spike was driven home at Craigellachie, B.C. And they repeated the feat in 1923 when they welded all of their other trunk lines (“the polyglot inheritance”) into another and even longer coast-to coast property, Canadian National. None of your interchanges and gateways, rate-making regions and territorial fiefdoms, and run-throughs and “East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet” for the Canadians. Item: Toronto and Winnipeg have no TRRAs, no Union Railroads, no EJ&Es. What Official Guide reader wasn’t impressed by the fact that CP and CN each required four pages worth of maps to document lines and stations whereas the longest U.S. roads could cover theirs in two ?
Canada’s climate lends itself to latitude. The depth of Minnesota is sufficient to cover the maximum distance between the Canadian transcons (it occurs in Alberta) as they parallel one another from the Maritimes to Vancouver. As if our Great Northern and Northern Pacific had begun in Boston instead of St. Paul . . . and we’d left the rest of our land to the Mohawks and Seminoles and Navajos.
Of all lands, is there one more indebted to the mass-transportation bulk-commodity nature of railroading for realizing natural resources than Canada ? Ore, coal, grain, potash, sulphur, lumber-the nouns summon up panoramas of SD40’s and M636’s in full cry with box cars, covered hoppers, gons, bulkhead flats, open hoppers. Again the anthem: Where pine and maples grow, Great prairies spread and lordly rivers flow, How dear to us thy broad domain . . .
In a railway context, now, what does Canada connote to you ? The disparateness between a three-piece-suit commuter swinging aboard an every-20-minute GO Transit bilevel into Toronto and an Indian with arm raised at mile 278.6, Manitoba, flag stop for the triweekly Hudson Bay in adjacent provinces ? Perhaps the Quebec Bridge or the structure over the Saskatchewan River at Edmonton or the viaduct at Lethbridge, Alberta, or the arch at Stoney Creek, B.C. Uncountable nonrevenue miles of flangers bucking snowdrifts that send enough Canadians south each winter for Florida motels to fly the maple leaf on their flagpoles ? Prairies punctuated by grain elevator exclamation marks ? All the pleasant names, past and present-the Esquimalt & Nanaimos, the Pacific Great Easterns, Dominion Atlantics, and Temiscouatas ? Or the Spiral Tunnels, which is to say an underground Tehachapi in spades ?
Give my generation the Elesco closed-type feedwater heater. Carried ahead of the stack on the smokebox of seemingly everything worth a trailing truck and a few that were not, this tube-filled vessel was surely the locomotive signature of Canada. What better locale to preheat boiler water ? And what other auxiliary could have added so much authority to the helm of wheat extras and pool trains and the Dominion ? I delighted in these bundle-type heaters, whether frowning on the prototypes of the largest fleet of 4-8-4s in the Western Hemisphere, or countersunk on streamlined Selkirks, or worn like a bonnet on dainty Pacifics. They must have made Erie and T&P folk feel at home!
And after the Elesco, give me Frank L. Packard’s memorable, CP-influenced fiction about turn-of-the-century railroading in the mountains. Do you remember Superintendent Carleton and Master Mechanic Regan-and Spitzer, and the 1601? When I arrived in Field, B.C., in the cab of Selkirk 5927 in May 1950, their ghosts were there on the platform.
The idiosyncrasies intrigue. The two ingenious if inconclusive splurges with lightweight, low center-of-gravity passenger equipment, TurboTrain and LRC. The fact that CN fielded a two-unit road diesel in 1928 that could displace a 4-8-2 on an intercity limited. The intermodal mentality which enveloped telegraph and steamship and aircraft and truck and express and hotel under the same logo. (Try training, sailing, and flying Santa Fe, as thousands have CP.) The discrepancy, in their favor, between the mileage of US owned track in Canada and vice versa. Only three A1A-A1A passenger cab units in a country with just as much flat land as we’ve got. The international oddity of a nation crossed by parallel railways, one privately owned, the other public property. (How the Canadians must have smiled as we wrestled with the creation of Conrail and may now grin as we debate its disposition! Of course, we have had our moments, too, as VIA put on swaddling clothes.) The noble experiment of a high-pressure (up to 1750 pounds per square inch) 2-10-4, Angus-built CP T4a 8000. All that post-World War II railway building, without parallel south of the border, in Labrador and up to Great Slave Lake and throughout British Columbia. CN 4-6-4’s with awesome, asymmetric beer-barrel tenders. And yes, CP ten-wheelers imported from Scotland and Germany.
Royalty. One cannot discuss Canada absent royalty. The British Empire is gone, Canada is no longer a dominion, there is the Quebec issue, but the monarch still comes and is still conveyed by Royal Train even as her father and uncle were, as attested by those crowns on 4-6-4 running boards and by a photo of the princess climbing into the cab of CN U-1-e 4-8-2 6057.
O Canada! Oh yes! We Americans go and we keep going back across that frontier (“Guarded only by neighborly respect and honorable obligations,” as Churchill said) because Canadian trains are just like ours, only as different as Saskatoon and Spartanburg. Perhaps we traveled north at first because the Canadians were slower to discard steam, mixeds, branch lines, Morse, limiteds, and cabooses, but now we return to watch ‘em haul herculean loads across the Rockies, operate a passenger train 2887 miles between origin and destination, dispatch freights up to the 61st parallel in the Northwest Territories, and customize SD40-2s with safety cabs and SD50s with Draper tapers. We can touch the FM’s-C-liner and Train Master-that we were too blind to preserve. We can schedule ourselves behind F’s to a dock on Hudson Bay where one can board a ship for Europe, and into Montreal behind electrics so venerable (1914) that they were around a year after Rudolph Diesel drowned. And we can wait in waiting rooms of stations that look like stations.
O Canada! . . . keep thee steadfast thro’ the years.

[BentnoseWillie]

QUOTE: Remember that "icehockey" or "ice hockey" are not words spoken in Canada.
The correct word is "hockey" or "Hockey".[;)]

So there I was, over in Paris
Eating wine and drinking cheese
And this guy comes up to me and he says
“Where are you from?”
Well, I says “Yeah, I’m from Canada”
And he says “Zut Alors, mon Dieu, you are from Canada? Do you play 'ockey?”
And I says “Do I play hockey?

Well, I play Air hockey, Ball hockey, Barn Hockey, Bubble Hockey
Field hockey, floor hockey, ice hockey, kitchen hockey
Road hockey,Roller hockey, Table hockey, Twist hockey
And I play
hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey,
hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey,
hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey,
Hockey all the time!

Jughead - "Hockey Song"

[;)]

[Murphy Siding]

We read about, and the luckier among us, see, American transcontinental trains zooming across the country.What about the Canadian transcontinentals? Where is most of their traffic coming from, and going to? Is there a *land bridge* type set-up, running containers from west cost to east coast?

Thanks

[Murphy Siding]

I assume that you mean on this forum? I see that. It appears that the correct term for Canadian *train lines* would Railways. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.[:)]

[tatans]

Murphysiding:RE way-road--go to TRAINS forum, this very topic is under discussion.

[nanaimo73]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding

I may need some language lessons.[:I]

Remember that "icehockey" or "ice hockey" are not words spoken in Canada.
The correct word is "hockey" or "Hockey".[;)]

I found some more stuff you may enjoy-
http://www.railscanada.com/index2.shtml
I have not looked through it yet.
To answer your earlier question, I believe the third longest frieght railway in Canada would be the MacKenzie Northern.
http://www.railamerica.com/railmaps/MKNR.htm


Note to everyone else-
This thread is now about any railway topic in Canada.
Anyone have any questions they would like answered ?

[Murphy Siding]

QUOTE: Originally posted by nanaimo73

QUOTE: Originally posted by siberianmo

In response to a previous Post: And as much as I dearly love to travel aboard VIA Rail. Are they really a railroad, or simply a rail user [?] If they own trackage and rights-of-way, I suppose the term, "railroad" would fit.

I believe they own 3 sections of former CN track in Ontario. One is east of Windsor, one is SW of Ottawa and the other is SE of Ottawa.


Murphy,
have you had any language troubles on the "British" thread ?

.......Well........yes[:I]

[Grinandbearit]

I have that book (Lines of Country) and I can't even imagine paying $500 for it let alone $1500 of $1600.It's a great source of information but $1600, no way!
Here in Eastern Ontario 125 years ago we had railways like the Napanee, Tamworth and Quebec which became the Kingston, Napanee & Western which in turn became the Bay of Quinte Railway and then disappeared into the CNoR and then into the CNR and that's the only way it ever got to Quebec!

[nanaimo73]

QUOTE: Originally posted by siberianmo

In response to a previous Post: And as much as I dearly love to travel aboard VIA Rail. Are they really a railroad, or simply a rail user [?] If they own trackage and rights-of-way, I suppose the term, "railroad" would fit.

I believe they own 3 sections of former CN track in Ontario. One is east of Windsor, one is SW of Ottawa and the other is SE of Ottawa.


Murphy,
have you had any language troubles on the "British" thread ?

[Murphy Siding]

I may need some language lessons.[:I]

[nanaimo73]

(Canadien is the french version of Canadian. CN put one on one side of their boxcars and the other on the other side.)

Two other fallen flags-CDAC and CAR, both on former CP lines east of Montreal.

[Murphy Siding]

QUOTE: Originally posted by nanaimo73

QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding

Dale: your posts seem to emphasize how little most of us *down here* know about Canadian railroads.

I removed that stuff.

Dale: I wasn't picking at you. I find your posts very informative, and they do emphazsize that * I * know little about Canadian railroads. (Or Canadien Railways either, for that matter). [;)]. I think I can speak for most of us here, when I say that Trains.com forum gained something, and Birds.com(?) lost something when you decided to turn your attention toward trains agian.[:D]

As far as your other mention of losing the Canadian culture: Either I'm turning into my parents[:0], or we Americans are losing our culture to my kids' generation-DOOD![xx(]

[jchnhtfd]

One of the more delightful things about many 'fallen flags' or just plain abandoned bits of track is that so many miles of them are open for folks to walk or ride on; unlike our friends to the south, it is rare for a line which has had the rails lifted to NOT turn into a hiking/riding/snowmobile or whatever path. Differences in ownership -- but it does make for some very nice trails!

(Might be unique to Ontario -- I'm not too sharp on the Prairie provinces, sorry... never mind Quebec!)

[nanaimo73]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding

Dale: your posts seem to emphasize how little most of us *down here* know about Canadian railroads.

I removed that stuff.

QUOTE: I know that CN is bigger than CP, but after that, who's next as far as size?

Ten years ago it went CNR-CPR-(VIA)-BCR-Ontario Northland-Algoma Central-QNS&L-Cartier (I believe).
Do you have the February 1999 Trains ? It has an article on Railink.
http://www.trainscan.com/hist/rl/

How big is your Trains collection ?

QUOTE: What is the difference between "railroad" and "railway"?

Railway is the Briti***erm which we prefer. (We also like paycheque, colour and centre.)

[beaulieu]

QUOTE: Originally posted by andrewjonathon

QUOTE: Originally posted by nanaimo73

QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding

Today, I saw a BC Rail car here in town. BC Rail would definitely qualify as a fallen flag. Like most Americans, I picture Canada as only having two railroads,CN and CP. What can you guys up north tell us about other Canadian railroads, and Canadian fallen flags?

Two other fallen flags in Alberta would be the Great Slave Lake Railway and the Alberta Resources Railway. Both were built by governments to open up northern areas for development.
http://railways-atlas.tapor.ualberta.ca/cocoon/atlas/Chapters-13-1/
http://railways-atlas.tapor.ualberta.ca/cocoon/atlas/Chapters-13-2/

I am curious should the Great Slave Lake Railway really be considered a fallen flag? I always thought it was owned and operated by CN until the late 1990s when it was purchased by Railink. I remember seeing pictures of the locomotives which I believe were yellow with a black CN noodle and the words "Great Slave Lake Railway" written underneath.

I don't believe it existed as a corporation. I think it was an early example of what is now known as an Internal Shortline. Where the parent company assigns dedicated power and local management is empowered to make decisions. It was primarily a single commodity carrier not directly connected to parent CN.

[andrewjonathon]

QUOTE: Originally posted by nanaimo73

QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding

Today, I saw a BC Rail car here in town. BC Rail would definitely qualify as a fallen flag. Like most Americans, I picture Canada as only having two railroads,CN and CP. What can you guys up north tell us about other Canadian railroads, and Canadian fallen flags?

Two other fallen flags in Alberta would be the Great Slave Lake Railway and the Alberta Resources Railway. Both were built by governments to open up northern areas for development.
http://railways-atlas.tapor.ualberta.ca/cocoon/atlas/Chapters-13-1/
http://railways-atlas.tapor.ualberta.ca/cocoon/atlas/Chapters-13-2/

I am curious should the Great Slave Lake Railway really be considered a fallen flag? I always thought it was owned and operated by CN until the late 1990s when it was purchased by Railink. I remember seeing pictures of the locomotives which I believe were yellow with a black CN noodle and the words "Great Slave Lake Railway" written underneath.