Holiday Trains

Every two years Mike would get a 4-5 week summer vacation, with the HBCo providing a relief manager for the store and covering the cost of travel to Edmonton. We would stay at the Corona Hotel on Jasper Avenue in Edmonton for a few days while he completed business at the Northern Stores office on 104 Street. That done, we would travel by train to Winnipeg to visit Granny and Grandpa Paul for a couple of weeks before continuing on, by train, to Kamsack Saskatchewan to visit Babushka and Dyedushka, Mom’s parents. Uncle Mike would meet us at the station in Kamsack for the 10-mile ride to the farm. At the end of the “holidays” we would take the train back to Edmonton, and fly home. We followed this pattern six times, in 1954 and 1957 returning to Fort Providence, and in 1959, 1961, 1963 and 1965 to Fort Chipewyan. 

On the longer trips we used CNR’s new Pullman-Standard sleeper cars, sleeping in a two-bed room with its own sink and toilet. Later, when Tania and I were older, we used roomettes that folded down to seats during the day. I got my own berth, which I loved. While lying down I would roll up the shade a bit and watch the countryside or the activity at station stops, unobserved by passers-by. The black porters on CNR trains in the 1950’s were a real novelty, joking and teasing us kids. But they didn’t put up with nonsense, like running between coaches, making noise in the smoking lounge, or going in the bar car at all. We looked forward to the calls for meals, “Second seating for dinner”, which would send us forward to the dining car for an elegant meal – table cloth, formal place settings, several choices, and first-class service from a waiter, never black, and never a waitress. Tania and I could choose whatever we wanted from the menu, including pop drinks and any dessert. We ate while the prairie scenes rolled by, telephone lines swooping between poles, the clicking of wheels on rails, the tonal change over a bridge, with the ground dropping so we were flying over a stream far below, then whoosh, suddenly returning. Clackety, clackety, thumpety, thumpety, thumpety, clackety, clackety … on and on. If we went to the very back of the train we could stand on the open platform of the last coach and watch the tracks rushing away, rails converging into distant curves, with the ties moving so fast they couldn’t be seen until they were some distance away. The platforms between the coaches were always a bit disconcerting. Much louder than in the cars themselves, the roar of wind and clattering wheels shocked as soon as the door opened. The steel floor plates accommodating movement between the cars always felt a little dangerous, especially if you stood right on the joins, which we would. I would stick my head out of the window to see the engine on curves, chuffing and roaring in the wind with occasional whiffs of burning coal. Mike cautioned me to squint to prevent getting cinders in my eyes. We almost lost Mike once on the way to Kamsack when he decided to run to a liquor store during a station stop. We were already moving when he returned, but he managed to hop on near the end of the train, and walk through all the coaches to rejoin us. Mom wasn’t particularly happy about his antic, and let him know it, but his own happiness was ensured with his mickey of rye.

During our 1957 visit to the farm I spent a few days staying in town with Aunt Dora and Uncle Fred Belovanoff. Uncle worked in the CNR railway yard in Kamsack, shunting cars and engines on sidings, operating the roundhouse turntable, and maintaining the station garden. One morning he took me to work with him. He fired up a steam-powered switcher, an O-18-a I believe, and we happily pushed and pulled boxcars by the grain elevators. I got to shovel coal into the firebox, pull the whistle cord, and apply the brake. It was an amazing experience for a nine-year-old, and cemented my love for trains.

An 0-6-0 CNR switcher model O-18-a, the same as the one Uncle Fred and I used in Kamsack. 

The gardens that Uncle Fred maintained until he retired from the CNR in the late 1960's. 

By 1961 my grandparents had left the farm and moved to town. The day after we arrived Roger, a neighbour my age, took me to the railway yard. CNR had gathered dozens of retired steam locomotives destined for scrapping, and we spent the entire afternoon climbing on them, exploring and pretending. By suppertime we were covered with coal dust and greasy ash, but very satisfied. Babushka had invited several relatives for dinner that evening to show off her grandchildren. I wonder if Roger had set me up.

This photo of CNR engines waiting to be scrapped was taken in Winnipeg in 1960 (thank you Bikelover2 on Flickr). Roger and I played on engines in conditions similar to these.

Arriving in Winnipeg was exciting. The CN line passed through the south end of the city before turning north towards downtown. At one point we could see the tall brick chimney of the Fort Osborne barracks on the horizon, and we knew we were close. The barracks, now the Rady Jewish Community Centre, was across Doncaster Street from the horse paddock behind Granny’s house. We left the train at Union Station on Main and Broadway.  The architects who designed Grand Central Terminal in New York City designed this huge limestone structure, in use since 1911.  The central lobby is a rotunda with echoed acoustics that distort announcements, “Train from Dauphin arriving on track 3”, “Ten minutes until Toronto departure on track 6”. Granny and Grandpa Paul would be waiting for us, both elegantly dressed, arms out for hugs, everyone smiling, “Look how you’ve grown”, and we were off to the car, a Red Cap porter following behind with our suitcases on a cart. 

Union Station in Winnipeg in the 1930's, with its huge rotunda. Announcements have a unique sound in the large space created by the high ceiling in the large lobby.

My last summer holiday trip with the family was in 1965. After Grade 12 exams were over I flew home to Fort Chipewyan via Courier Air , spent two weeks with the family, and then flew back to Edmonton through Fort McMurray via MASL and PWA. This time we went to Kamsack first, then Winnipeg. After a few days at Granny and Grandpa Paul's new house on Lyle Street I decided to have an adventure of my own, and travelled by train to Vancouver to visit my high school friend Howard. I took the CNR Super Continental and experienced seeing the Rockies from a dome car for the first time.