Continuing to draw from my Canada 1950 (to 1953) Yearbooks - The Official Handbook of Present Conditions and Recent Progress ...
Over the years, I assembled a collection of these annual government publications for their historical documentary value. As the first example shows, the paper has discoloured and the photographs are often rough. In these images we can see how the government wanted to present Canada to the world.
The capacity and ergonomics of combines have certainly changed over the years! You can see a tractor and a caterpillar tractor pulling the two combines. The combine operators are standing to operate the machines which are separating the wheat from the chaff, the stalks, etc.
This may be the equipment owned by a single farmer, or a farmer and a neighbour pooling their resources.
Today a new combine costs about $1,000,000 plus the additional cost of the particular headers (up to 50 feet wide) chosen. Additional options include automated yield monitoring, GPS, auto-steer, moisture sensors and remote telemetry.
One complaint of today's 'right to repair' movement is that vendor/dealer control of specialized tools and diagnostic software can create delays during peak harvest season.
... Of course this monopoly situation also prevents price competition for these services. Among other things, the vendors control 'push' software updates, remote software diagnostics and the reading of fault codes.
Stacks of nested empty baskets are seen beyond the horse.
Were you ever in Quebec, Stowing timber on the deck ...
Across the river in Hull, the forest products business seems to be doing well.
Many of you will recognize the trainsheds of Union Station at the bottom centre of the photo.
No more railway soot downtown.
Union Station is gone.
Just shining white streets and rubber-tired 'freedom'!
Some workers have workstations which are not exactly 'ergonomic'.
The two workers at the right are adept at using lens stereoscopes to view 'stereo pairs' of aerial photographs. These simple little viewers are rarely used today as they have been superseded by digital applications which are used with specialized monitors ... or images from 'satellite radar' which have been digitally calibrated or analyzed.
However, students who are in training to analyze aerial images ... or someone performing an analysis of historical aerial photos ... might still learn how to use these devices.
Each eye looks down through its own lens onto two consecutive aerial photographs taken along a straight line overflight. Once you have the photos lined up, you try to get your eyes to look down and focus along parallel rays to the images - rather than their well-evolved function of focusing on a single image in front of you.
At some point ... sometimes after a frustrating long period of wide-eyed, unfocused staring ... your eyes 'pop' and you see a magnificent three-dimensional image of the landscape below.
A young-looking image of King George VI.
I know this is the CPR and everything is accounted for in triplicate ... or else!
However, you can see how and why today's intermodal shipping containers reduce damage and theft.
The freight diesel in the background with the single note 'boat horn' has no number which I can read. Notice the dual-gauge tracks, with a broad gauge rail to support the Indian locomotive.
I think this kind of export was sometimes government-subsidized to be 'foreign aid'. However, if you've watched many YouTube videos about Indian passenger railways today ... perhaps we could use a little of their foreign aid at this point.
... The Indian Railways have a very strong railroading culture - particularly on the passenger side. There is also a remarkably powerful shop capacity to keep their passenger equipment in service.
... The many rolling inspections detectable through the vigorous waving of green flags by employees is quite impressive.
... The system has become increasingly electrified. Passenger trains are generally 20 cars long. On the main intercity lines they operate at high speeds which are not impaired by the track maintenance practices, traffic control priorities, or the crossing protection technology of a freight railway landlord overlord.
... They move over 7 billion passengers in a year.
There are many interesting details to see here. Among the many vanishing technologies are the turning loops which can be seen running between the backs of the roundhouses and the property lines. These were important for maintaining the consist order of passenger train equipment being sent back out to retrace the same routes.
As well, theoretically, the loops could also be helpful for yard switchers employed in the process of 'batch-turning' steam locomotives ... for example, when there were turntable failures or during periods of peak demand on roundhouse facilities.
This was one of a few rail manufacturers which operated in Canada.
That era was before 'ribbon-rail' and before the advanced metallurgy of modern steel rails.
These technology changes demanded specialized and sophisticated 'world market capacity' mills.
These two photos were published two years apart in the Canada yearbooks. To the best of my endurance and patience for 'rivet counting' automobiles, the cars below may be Studebakers which may have been manufactured in Hamilton.
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Canada was one of the key proponents for the founding of the mutual defence organization NATO. We drafted Article 2 ourselves and lent strong support to Article 5 - the one that's always in the news of 2025-2026.
Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs Lester Pearson was the first person to sign the NATO treaty in Washington on 4 April 1949. Canada was the first country to officially ratify the NATO treaty on 30 April 1949.
We stationed relatively large RCAF jet aircraft contingents in Europe after the war - eventually with the capacity to deliver US tactical ('small', 'battlefield') nuclear weapons against Warsaw Pact nations. In the early 1950s we trained over 5000 European air crew - continuing with the expertise we had developed through the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan during the Second World War.
As the European countries overcame their economic and industrial plant losses from the war, we retired to some extent from our large European military footprint and orientation.
While the 'stopping power of water' has protected us from land invasion [ahem, from most countries] it could never protect us from strategic nuclear weapons and we chose not to develop our own.
The history below is from 1964.
An updated version is available on Wikipedia.
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| from: The Regiments and Corps of The Canadian Army; 1964; Minister of National Defence. |
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