HaltoAlto! - A Loathsome Opinion Piece

To be better informed during Trump-45 I had a subscription to the New York Times. I cancelled it after a year or so because I was just reading opinion columns. On a Canadian news aggregator, there are always ten new Canadian opinion pieces on display - generally on Canadian politics - written by the same opinion shapers day after day. How exhausting and sad it must be to regularly assert that the truth is to be found in your opinion. Like everybody, I have one - but I usually sit on it.

There have always been people who care and who have been effective at VIA Rail - at all levels. Indeed Rolly Martin was one of them. However, there were things about VIA which he never could have fixed because of the lack of modern equipment.

Like support for Ukraine, VIA has always received 'not enough, just in time'. Often I have wondered if VIA Directors and Executives over the decades have always had an appropriate single-minded focus on improving passenger rail service in Canada. 

... Hopefully the Alto project will continue to operate at arm's length from VIA. VIA personnel already have enough issues to keep them really busy.

Evening westbounds at Kingston in 1981.
It's hard for you to believe, my son, but 45 years ago VIA Rail passengers sometimes became stranded!

The Future of Passenger Rail in the Past

Decades ago, conventional wisdom held that Canadian intercity passenger rail services were destined for extinction because sensible people would choose the personal convenience of autos driven on our new superhighways, or the speed of aircraft. Only people who were 'above' taking the bus took the train.

The banishment of Ottawa's downtown railway station in the 1960s and the drive'n'fly location of the Montreal-Mirabel International Airport illustrate the failure to shrewdly interpret what the future holds. After half a century, in spite of VIA's many failures, and the failures of the host railway(s), there is still a demand for intercity passenger trains. 

This is not the past when main line passenger trains were 10-15 cars long (1100 tons) and freight trains were 50-100 cars long (4000 tons). In that era, the trucks of cute little 40-ton railcars hammered and hunted against the rails, followed by a small army always ready to tighten bolts, line, jack and shim.

This is not the past when the operators of a single company ranked all of the trains on their rails - either as most-favoured trains of numbered classes, or expected them to help themselves over the road as extra trains. 

Rattling Down the Main Like a Janky South Park Animation

Flanged wheels running on steel rails is a remarkable technology for carrying any number of heavy loads efficiently on a low-friction surface ... or light loads very fast on a perfectly aligned surface.  

The Canadian National Railway has become just another railroad in the American model (opines this 'typically greedy' beneficial shareholder). For it to behave differently would be a liability. It is the wily Fred Trump to homeless VIA's mandated tenancy across Canada. However, CN's rails are no longer optimized for VIA's flanged wheels, particularly on the patchwork of lines which VIA styles as The Corridor.

Today, when passenger and freight trains share the tracks, the mathematical odds are generally excellent for the safety of passengers. However, the physics will not be forgiving if lumber or propane loads ever make contact with a passenger train. Every transportation system has its risks, but why do we accept this as 'normal'?

With great regularity, as they traverse CN's old Grand Trunk stone bridges, cuts and fills, VIA's trains are constantly at the mercy of motorists who don't understand level crossing safety, trespassers, people in mental distress ... and the ups and downs of massive distributed power consists we wish the two Georges and Rudolf could come back to life to see.

from: UCRS Newsletter, December 1968.
Welcome to Kingston!

HaltoAlto!

I have been following the news reports of the Alto public information sessions being held in a couple of rural locations. These sessions are probably being held to discover geographical points of resistance, to inform, and to condition local public opinion. There are ample on-line avenues for input as well. 

I think most people are understandably unhappy about any new transportation corridor which may approach their property. Someone asked: Why can't more trains be put on the existing lines and be speeded up a little? Sorry, we can't give you answers - this is just an information session.

One suave Alto PR rep suggested that he likes to think of this transportation project as 'bringing people together'. Though he probably does not mean with the torches and pitchforks which are brought to some rural information sessions.

At least two local councils near Kingston reactively voted against a new rail corridor in their jurisdictions. If a line is to serve Kingston - let it do so through the City of Kingston! With such logic it is hard to argue.

from: tec0kf; 鉄道史資料保存団. archive.org

In 1965 the 320 miles between Osaka and Tokyo were routinely covered in 3 hours, 10 minutes.

from: tec0kf; 鉄道史資料保存団. archive.org

What Is Down the Track? 

Like many Boomers and Joneses I have made the sage pronouncement that I won't be around to ride on the completed Alto system. The applause which followed surprised me. 

Canadians once fought gallantly in, worked to help win, observed, ignored, or were placed in Interior Housing Centres because of, World War Two. But history is never over. Only history books neatly bookend time.

Over 700,000 Canadians who had been immersed in the events of World War Two never found out how it ended ... simply because their time was up and they died before it ended.

Nonetheless, while alive, they still worked toward the future they believed in, as if their descendants depended on them. 

It spectacularly fails to make us 'Great Again' in the eyes of some people. However, some of us see the planning of transportation systems to decrease carbon emissions, where reasonable, as one of many things we can do for our descendants.

Coalie, Mascot of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement.
Destined for the Ashpit of History.

What Is Coming Down the Pike, and Out of the Blue?... in 20 to 40 years.

Most Canadians are reasonable people who understand climate science. Many are taking action on their own to decrease their impact on the environment. Even with electric road vehicles, imagining our present habits continuing into the future is a pretty normal thing to do. 

People 'will always' drive their cars between Montreal and Toronto. People who have more money than time will continue to fly between eastern Canadian cities such as Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. 

However, it is hard to imagine where the additional highways will be built to connect Montreal and Toronto. How enjoyable will it be to use the highways of the future? What are the future projections for truck traffic? 

Rough estimates suggest an increase of 50% on current volumes of auto and truck traffic in the next 20 years ... Of course, there are many variables which could influence outcomes in the future.

I regret that I won't be around to see self-driving trucks, and self-driving cars, self-driving their way on the 401 through Toronto during the first snowstorm of the year.

Will flying continue to be the pleasant, convenient, reliable and cheap exercise that it currently is?

Will the angry people at Alto information sessions, or the knee-jerking HaltoAlto! municipalities, happily embrace the wider corridors taken for new highways (like the 407), and the inevitable new power lines, any more than they welcome a relatively narrow Alto line? 

Currently, about 7% of Ontario farmland (about 750,000 acres, 3000 square kilometres) is used to grow corn, to ferment for ethanol, to burn in cars. People may complain about a new electric rail corridor taking up farmland. However, if ICE vehicle demand for ethanol is decreased, some farmland can be returned to the purpose of producing food. 

from: UCRS Newsletter, December 1968.

Have We Ever Done This Before?

We've had proper controlled access highways since the 1960s. Almost no one would dream of operating a snowmobile on Highway 401 or walk on it as a short cut. 

We've never had a proper high-speed intercity railway system which was designed solely for passenger service. While the LRC equipment was designed to make electrification possible, almost all modern Canadian passenger locomotives have lugged on-board generating systems to power their traction motors.

During Air Canada strikes in the 1980s, 20-car passenger trains were run when necessary. Railway technology is scalable and track-capacity-efficient in a way which aircraft and highway vehicles are not. 

... We've forgotten about this characteristic because VIA barely has enough spare equipment to run a Grey Cup special. There are other constraints. Want to run extra passenger trains to meet demand? ... work it out with landlord 'Fred Trump'. 

A proper high-speed passenger rail system has the capacity to move large numbers of people as required. 

To counter the circuitous Alto route: If CN ever chooses to install concrete ties and maintain its Kingston Subdivision track structure, VIA Montreal-Toronto trains could still have the option of at least rivalling Alto travelling times. 

Alto is predicting 'about' a 3 hour travelling time on their Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto route. 

Sixty-one (61) years ago, Japan's 1965 Shinkansen could travel Montreal to Toronto (straight line) in 3 hours 10 minutes. 

A compelling case could have been made for a direct Alto route between Montreal and Toronto. 

Air Canada has become just another air carrier in the American model. For it to behave differently would be a liability. 

Air Canada is a member of the Cadence Consortium which is now behind Alto. Flying between Montreal and Toronto only takes about 1 hour 30 minutes.

Many older readers will remember the high regard many Canadians had for Canadian National Railways and Air Canada when they were still Crown corporations.

from: Brockville Railfan, YouTube, 19 February 2026.
I double-checked - the switch heaters are off and are not refracting light.
Those are the rails.

Like many, in recent years I've had a bellyful of flowery political rhetoric which yields no results. 

I may never use this new high-speed passenger rail system. I think it is a reasonable investment in an asset which will benefit Canadians in the future. It will also decrease the impact of transportation on the environment.

And we - as people with an interest in, and knowledge about, railway technology - should exert steady pressure on those responsible for creating the Alto system. They should be designing a system which will still be considered a valuable transportation asset 50 years after it opens.

CPR Snapshots DAR 26, CPR 100, 203, 1026, 1102, Woottens, Camelbacks & Anthracite

Once again, I try to do justice to items from a little box of CPR steam locomotive prints I purchased in the 1980s. The images are all smaller than 2 x 5 inches, but they are generally quite sharp and yield interesting historical details with computer-based enlargement.

Out there on the internet ... are historians who could expertly interpret the features and history of these engines, and these classes of engines, based on years of careful study. 

My first task is to make copies of these images available for people to see, download, use, etc. 

My second task is to provide a little information to make the images more interesting.

My third task is to avoid presenting information which is incorrect. I use Omer Lavallee's books.

"Digby, Nova Scotia about 1928"

Dominion Atlantic Railway engine 26 ('Kent') is shown on the wharf at Digby. The engine came into the CPR roster at the time of the CPR lease of the Dominion Atlantic Railway in 1912. It was built by Baldwin in March 1901 and scrapped before 1941. The fireman is checking his 'news feed' and the engineer might be napping ... as they both await the CPR ferry's arrival from Saint John. 

The DAR names were decoration and were not used to identify the engines in train orders:

• Edward, Duke of Kent was the father of Queen Victoria and Commander-in-Chief of the military forces stationed in British North America circa 1800.
• Previously, the engine had been decorated with the names: President, Governor Cox and Wolfeville. 
• On Governor Cox ... there was a British military officer, Nicholas Cox (1724-1794), who participated in the expulsion of the Acadians and who was appointed lieutenant governor of the district of Gaspé. You know, we can think too much about these details sometimes.

Built by Rogers in August 1883, the CPR 100 is seen at an unknown location between 1907 and 1913 - the period when this number was in use. It was scrapped as 7013 in September 1921.

A box car is spotted at the platform of a freight shed on this light-railed country branch line.

Left to right: We may be looking at the engineer, headend trainman and the fireman. The air pump is working away in front of the fireman's open cab door.

This engine was built at the CPR New Shops ('Delorimier') in September 1889, numbered 438. 

Now, with its third road number, the 203 sits on a track in Winnipeg in September 1932. Its stack is capped and winter cab curtains are installed. 

I think it is missing one of its rods. It will be scrapped in August 1935.

*  *  *

Ten Years of Fun!

Before its conversion to a 'Camelback' this engine would have had a conventional and pleasing appearance. It was built by Richmond (in Virginia) in March 1899. 

The most plausible explanation for this type's 'Mother Hubbard' (a nursery rhyme from before 1800) nickname is the observation that the engineer was cooped up in a glorified cupboard. 

This photo would have been taken between 1902 and 1906 - the period when the engine was numbered 1026.

This engine started out as a 'compound' >> Running the steam through a (21 inch diameter) high pressure cylinder, then a (33 inch diameter) low pressure cylinder. Both cylinders were 26 inches in length. Compounding was an evolutionary improvement in the never-ending quest to increase the power and fuel efficiency of steam locomotives.

It was converted to a Camelback with a Wootten firebox in 1902 to burn anthracite, but was later rebuilt to burn bituminous coal in March 1911, as this experiment was deemed unsuccessful (so about a decade as a Camelback). 

Then in 1912, the compound cylinders were replaced with identical 20 inch cylinders. 

The engine was scrapped in April 1935. 

In terms of effective 'crew resource management' ... having the fireman located at his normal position at the boiler backhead, and the engineer isolated in that cab - perched on the boiler, would not have been optimal for the sake of maintaining a 'watch out' for signals and the track ahead ... or for the verification/reminders of train order instructions (eg. meets). Nor would it have been helpful when an engineer was working with a less-experienced fireman who required instruction.

... However, this may not have mattered as much on assigned runs where the same engine crew always worked together. Both crew members would usually be working in miserable conditions on this type of locomotive, so they probably would not feel like chit-chat anyway. 

There is an amazing amount of AI-generated slop being generated for YouTube. Search for 'Camelback' if you want to see some. I was looking for old amateur films of Camelbacks in use on fast passenger trains on the CNJ and similar roads. Eric gave me an excellent set of DVDs a long time ago showing these operations and I was hoping you could see them too.

... On YouTube, if you are patient, you will see the odd case where a rod failed under load and punctured the floor of the engineer's 'cab'. Consequently, on some American roads, these engines were known as 'snappers'. 

The building of new Camelbacks was definitively prohibited by the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1927 for safety reasons.

Of trivial interest in the photo above are the two flags being used (in compliance with the rules of that era) as end of train 'markers'.

from: A Locomotive Engineer's Album; George B Abdill; 1965; Bonanza.

A Wootten firebox shown in a Baldwin photo (undated).

As we look at the back of the firebox, you can see the drawbar for the tender. This seems to be a smaller Camelback. The very wide grate area gives the firebox a roughly triangular shape. The fireman attended to those two firebox doors. You can see the engineer's controls through the cab window. The centrally mounted air pump and the locations for tender water supply and the trainline can be spotted. It seems possible that the fireman does not have his own injector or gauges in this set-up.

Two types of coal for two different applications ...

Generally, Canadian steam locomotives burned bituminous coal. Locomotive fireman training books circa 1900-1930, caution the fireman not to make smoke, as incomplete combustion can lose up to 50% of the coal's heat content. Flammable components which were produced in the firebox's heat from this coal included volatile gases such as methane, and combustible tars and oils. These made the coal easy to ignite and easy to keep burning. 

In Pennsylvania and other north-eastern coal mining states, anthracite was being produced. A harder coal which contained more carbon and produced fewer volatiles it when it was heated, it was highly desired for applications in cities such as home heating and home stoves. It burned almost without smoke. 

On the other hand, the smoke and soot produced by bituminous coal would deposit flammable chemicals on the inside of stove pipes. These deposits stayed there, waiting for the day when a hot fire would ignite them, creating a very hot rocket-like chimney fire up through the centre of a dwelling. This would probably cause the stove pipe to become red hot in the process. Anthracite was the safer, cleaner coal for city use.

Free Fuel !

There was no market for the large quantities of small anthracite particles (culm) which were left after the marketable coal had passed through the coal breakers in Pennsylvania and had been shipped to the cities. But if you say 'free fuel' ... someone is bound to take an interest in the material.

The Wootten firebox was designed to efficiently burn the pea-sized to grain-sized anthracite which was not marketable as 'city fuel'. The firebox provided a large burning area for a steady, hot fire. It also decreased the disruptive effect of the locomotive's draft on the small anthracite particles - again, through the use of this oversized grate. 

Here is detail from the photo above. 

You can see the fireman's 'cab' - it is not necessarily more exposed than other regular cabs of the same era. You can also see the particle size of the anthracite in the tender. With Montreal anthracite being imported mainly from Pennsylvania by ship ... there was probably enough small particle waste created during handling for the CPR to buy cheaply from city coalyards. 

*  *  *

A quick look at Pennsylvanian anthracite ...

from: Growing Up in Coal Country; Susan Campbell Bartoletti; 1996; Houghton Mifflin. archive.org

In Pennsylvania, breaker boys picked out slate and rock for wages of 70 cents for an 8-12 hour day. In 1885, the minimum age was 12 to work here. In 1902 it was raised to 14 ... but with no mandated state birth registry, parents could fill out a company form, get it notarized and their boy was then legally the desired age. 

As the coal was shaken down the breaker chutes, the boys stopped the flow with their feet, and using their bare fingers (a job requirement), fished out slate and rock and put these into the culm chute at the side. The unmarketable small particle anthracite would fall through screens at the bottom of the chutes. Each coal breaker facility produced up to 10 million tons of culm and other waste per year.

Making that kind of money, children could look forward to a promising career in the same town as a coal miner, with a permanent account at the company store. Then, if they became too old or injured to work in the mine, they could again possibly find employment picking coal.

This model was international ... Canadian boys in places like Cape Breton worked in similar conditions above and below ground.

*  *  *

from: Anthracite Culm and Silt; Sisler, Fraser, Ashmead; 1928; Pennsylvania Geological Survey. archive.org

The small particles of coal which resulted from coal mining and handling operations had become a major feature of the Pennsylvania countryside by 1928 - the year after new Camelback production was prohibited by the ICC. On the map above, you can barely see the short sections of watercourse marked by a solid line, signifying the coal mining areas which actually produced the silt.

This study documented the locations of the huge piles of culm and silt across the mining region, calculated the volumes of material they held, and considered how they could be valuable and marketable if reclaimed and sold ... for example, as briquettes. (At certain points in history, large coal briquettes were used to fuel steam locomotives in Europe.) The study also looked at the rate of flow of coal particles down rivers and documented watercourse blockages resulting from all of the 'clean, beautiful' coal silt.

*  *  *

My images for the previous two engine photos come from 2.25 x 4 inch prints. However, both of these photos appear in Lavallee's various works on CPR motive power. If you own a few railway books, you'll often notice the same photos appearing again and again. 

Before I found the image positively identified in his ultimate and definitive work on motive power, I spent an hour trying to identify the particular engine shown to calculate its scrapping date ... because there were duplicative renumberings for engines built at Angus and having the serial numbers 1433 and 1436. 

This is serial # 1436, built in May 1906 and scrapped in October 1957. 

These engines were heavily rebuilt over the course of their lives. The unusual-looking valve chest was another experiment which was not preserved for long.

*  *  *

from: A Treasury of Railroad Folklore; (article, George Zabriskie,1953); 1953; Bonanza.

George Zabriskie (1868-1954) was the descendent of early Polish settlers and was a native of New York City. He entered the flour business and worked for Pillsbury among others. Herbert Hoover appointed him national administrator of sugar and flour ... with domestic and possibly foreign aid responsibilities. He was an avid amateur historian and was eventually elected to the American Antiquarian Society. 

... His article A Century of American Locomotives and Their Builders goes on for pages. He mentions that the Camels were distinct from the later, and more successful, Camelbacks. In the Camels, the fireman's work station was known as the 'kitchen' as many firemen were 'cooked' there when trapped as the result of collisions. 

... He says that the Canadian Pacific's 548, built in 1891, and rebuilt in 1901 with a Schmidt smokebox superheater, 'settled the hash' of all the compounded locomotives.

The superheater was a more elegant solution to increasing locomotive efficiency than compounding.