The successor company to the Canadian Pacific Railway no longer displays its roster of steam locomotives, hotels and steamships with pride.
Reflecting on the changes to our society since the 1951 Royal Tour (the previous post) of the future Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip ...
CPR 1951 Royal Tour
I pulled out my Canada 1950 (and 1951) Yearbooks - The Official Handbook of Present Conditions and Recent Progress.
Over the years, I purchased (for about $10 each) a collection of these annual government publications for their historical documentary value. As the first example shows, the paper is cheap and the photographs are often rough. In them we can see how the government wanted to present Canada to the world.
For those who were adults in the 1950s, the decade was generally a fondly-remembered time when the recent privations of the Great Depression and the sacrifices to win the Second World War were pushed into history. Much of the industrialized world had seen its factories bombed into ruins. The 'stopping power of water' had saved the US and Canadian landmasses from most of the direct use of enemy munitions on our own physical plant. For a decade or so, American industrial might would dominate the world and Canada's resources would contribute to this power.
The internal combustion engine, gasoline and diesel fuel were putting an end to steamships and steam locomotives and the burning of coal for transportation. It was hard to keep up with the demand for diesel-electric locomotives, construction equipment, and automobiles. Aviation was the future.
Tariff fences made good neighbours. Canada's branch plant economy prospered. High school graduates easily found manufacturing work - repetitive and monotonous though it might be.
More and more of Canada's rich natural resources were harvested. Oil and gas pipelines were quickly built across Canada through the use of the new and powerful diesel-powered construction equipment. Diesel-powered centrifugal pumps (with 24 hour per day operators) made up for the lack of electricity in remote areas crossed by the pipelines. For many forms of petroleum, traditional railway transportation was deemed too inefficient in the face of these new technologies.
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Above: A Handbook image today in its raw form.
A 'right click/save as' on the images below will produce the actual publishing date of the image.
However, my experience is that they'd get several images from a participant, and use one or two each year.
Some images (dairy cattle, orchards, fields of wheat) might be up to five years old.
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Say good-bye to animal powered door-to-door milk delivery.
The old, screeching tramways will be replaced by buses gliding on rubber tires.
Winnipeg Union Station and the yard tracks and freight sheds of the 30-year-old Canadian National Railways.
Here's a uniquely well-lit 40-foot grain boxcar with a grain door constructed out of lumber.
The long probe was used to obtain grading samples from particular locations within the car.
The government-mandated Grain Commissioners had an extremely efficient system set up. Cars of grain coming from country elevators would be sampled as they arrived in Winnipeg. There, these samples would be graded by rows of government inspectors. The grading verdict would catch up to the car by wire as it reached a terminal elevator at the Lakehead or tidewater - so the grain could be put in terminal elevator silos with other shipments of the same grade.
The main purpose of the exercise was to offer consistent government-backed classes of grains to foreign buyers.
Upper Lakers and Canallers settle in for the winter - before the St Lawrence Seaway was built.
Trackside, at the left, that looks like a Neilson's candy advertising sign, but their factory was several miles away.
I think the Canadian manufacture of diesel locomotives was a result of the traditional tariff barriers,
which protected domestic locomotive production in both the US and Canada.
This is probably the Queen Elizabeth Way ... showing the original 1930s engineering used to build it.
No fancy, engineered, wood-based composite materials - just Canadian lumber.
Lovingly cut and joined by the muscle-power of a workforce which includes many recent immigrants.
Put in some *lead pipe plumbing,
double wood-framed windows (put in the second set every winter),
a modern oil-burning furnace and tank, a gravel driveway,
and you've got a modern affordable family dwelling!
After you move in, the Bell Telephone Company (Canada) will arrive
to semi-permanently wire your Canadian-made Northern Electric dial phone to the wall.
*Lead is also in the glossy oil-based house paint and ...
it's used in an anti-knock compound in the gasoline of all those idling
Blossom Sunday cars on the QEW and ...
it's also used to solder the Canadian steel of those convenient cans of
fruit juice, soup, stew, vegetables and fruits found in the new suburban supermarkets.
I think this is one of the Orenda jet engine variants being fine-tuned for testing.
Today, this building is owned by Bombardier.
Elsewhere, government cartographers are shown drafting new topographic maps.
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Pipelines
Today, 'we' are supposed to be all about petroleum (dilbit) pipelines, all the time!
Below is a long section on the Interprovincial Pipe Line project.
It was built for the lighter conventional grades of oil and petroleum products.
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To see how the petroleum transportation business has developed since 1951, below, are some system maps from the Interprovincial Pipe Line Company ... later part of Enbridge.
As traditional oil production often develops a declining underground field ...
or a greatly expanding resource in the case of the Alberta bitumen sands ...
and as older fields are put back into production when hydraulic fracturing is employed (fracking) ...
The pipeline infrastructure changes as consignor demand, pipeline technology and markets change.
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On the following maps, we can see additional pipes, larger pipes, new 'loops', new pumping technology, and new connections with other pipelines and storage hubs.
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1967
 |
1967 Interprovincial Pipe Line annual report. archive.org
https://archive.org/details/Inte0918_1967/mode/1up |
This is a particularly nice infographic. Not all of the company's annual reports have system maps. Unfortunately, the scanners failed to preserve the detail at the terminal at Superior, Wisconsin. In addition to Sarnia, the Interprovincial now also reaches Chicago where there are a number of refineries.
For the first time in this blogpost, you can also see the underwater segment that Michiganders have been very concerned about ... continuing into 2026 ... at Mackinaw (under the Straits of Mackinac between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron). From many sources and for many reasons there are questions and court challenges concerning the age, safety and wisdom of continuing to use the pipeline here.
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1981
|
1981 Interprovincial Pipe Line Ltd, Annual Report. archive.org
https://archive.org/details/Inte0918_1981/mode/1up |
The second route to Sarnia and an extension to Montreal are shown on this map.
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2010
 |
2010 Enbridge annual report. archive.org
https://archive.org/details/Enbr5919_2010/mode/1up |
I have truncated the map above and inserted the map key from the adjoining page.
All that upgraded oil and synthetic crude from the Alberta bitumen sands has to go somewhere. There are a number of refineries around Chicago and, no doubt, oil sold at a discount keeps things affordable for people there.
The hub where most US oil is (price) benchmarked has been reached at Cushing, Oklahoma. From Cushing, the oil can easily be sent to the refineries and export terminals around the Gulf of Mexico.
The upgraded oil and synthetic crude from the bitumen sands are in today's news (2026) as they are a key feedstock for these Gulf refineries producing and exporting diesel oil at elevated prices to meet world demand.
For future readers ... this situation is due to general refining capacity bottlenecks and the fact that producers and refineries around the Persian Gulf have been unable to process and export their usual volumes.
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Getting back to 1951 ...
Between the houses and the piles of pulp logs ... and around that point in the distance ... runs the Newfoundland Railway.
The world needs more lead!
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Aluminum
They've even got a roundhouse - which is still present on Google Maps today.
Today, this bauxite is usually mined in Guinea (Africa) and Brazil.
end
