CNR 1963 CRHA Excursion: 6167, Montreal to Victoriaville

This post travels on a CRHA fantrip with CNR 6167 to Victoriaville QC during the last month of John F Kennedy's presidency. Below, inside a photo album, is the schedule for the day.

My father's note on the right margin refers to the flyer's cover, showing a CNR 6200-class locomotive accelerating out of Shawinigan. 

The name Charlie Hardy was mentioned many times over the years, but I never met him and we kids had only a child's red wooden rocking chair ('That's Charlie Hardy's chair.') as proof that he ever existed. For my siblings, at the end of this post are my father's notes - from my grandfather's notes - on the obscure Charlie Hardy connection. An Intercolonial engineer also figures into the story.

from: Atlas of Canada; 1915; Government of Canada.

The map above comes from a government atlas from 1915. We'll be staying mainly in pink 'Grand Trunk territory'. From Montreal, we'll be travelling east to St Hyacinthe and Richmond, then north to Victoriaville.

An 80mph runpast! 

Before we're done, you'll see another way we lived 'on the edge' in the carefree 1960s!

During this era, my father carried two cameras for his snapshots. 

Here you'll see square format colour slides and rectangular black and white prints.

Above, my father and I are photographed by my grandfather at around 08hr on an sunny late-October day. 

Engine 6167 has just backed onto its train at Central Station.

Using both films gives a measure of redundancy.
This view of 6167's nose shows better detail in the low light condition.

... with my grandfather.

Freed from any temptation to stake out a crowded dutch door or baggage car door,
we were among the few cognoscenti to be invited into the cab,
as we had already 'saved' our sealed-window seats with personal effects,
and had walked up to see our power.

... Just don't ask for a cab ride ... you've already been told!

The passenger in the cab door has exactly the same camera being used here by my father.

The cab above and below - taken by the two cameras.
Above, you can see this is a coal-burning engine with a mechanical stoker -
the coal is augered up that hump.

In colour, you can see a lot of extra painting has probably been done on this special excursion engine.
Notice the warming shelf with the long-necked oiler and the valve oil.
Veteran locomotive firemen can tell you the temperature of the fire by looking at its colour.

Scroll right and you'll see the engineer's side water glass and three red 'try cocks' to its right.
The try cocks tap into a column of boiler water at different depths.
Their discharge of hot water (and not steam) is a better check on
the critical coverage of the crown sheet than the convenient water glass.

You can also see cut-out cocks at the water glass.
If the glass breaks on the road, the crew will change it themselves.

Above, a CRHA motorcading bus getting photos and 8mm film of the train.
Back in the 1960s everybody lived on the edge like this ... Shoulda been there, dude!
Most of these guys are probably smokers, too.

... and I think the bus driver has been drinking.
The 'Quebec Provincial Police' didn't have breathalyzers back then.

Runpast at Otterburn Park.

Otterburn Park runpast continues.
This looks like a fairly typical railfan of the era.

Compare the stack with the previous photo and notice how quickly the fireman
stopped over-stoking the fire to produce black smoke to make the fans happy.

*  *  *

St Hyacinthe stop - above and below (to show train length).

Still at St Hyacinthe ... my father gets a nice unconventional photo of the engine, while a clear signal beckons us over the Yamaska River.

Notice the master mechanic, assistant superintendent, or other official - 'in uniform'.
There was always a trench-coated officer supervising these unusual operations.

Map is repeated below for your convenience ...

from: Atlas of Canada; 1915; Government of Canada.

Here's the high-speed run at Upton QC.
The fan near the station may be working with reel-to-reel sound equipment

Above, sitting in a 'cafeteria car' at the Richmond stop after the phone call to Charlie Hardy.
Whenever I smelled coffee, cigarettes and bleach - it spelled 'adventure'.

From the Richmond station, my father called Charlie Hardy at nearby Melbourne.
If it was on the map, Melbourne would be just southwest of Richmond - near Kingsbury.


Making a phone call:

1. Look up the phone number in the phonebook or dial zero and ask the Operator ... in English.
2. If it is a local call, drop a dime into the phone slot for dimes. The coin hits a bell to tell the system the call has been paid for. Dial your local number. (You have to do this to get the Operator, too. When she answers, the dime is refunded in the small coin drawer below.)
3. If the call is long distance, the Operator asks you to classify the call as Station-to-Station, or Person-to-Person. The latter costs more because she gets the actual person on the line before the call timer on her end starts. She tells you the price for the first three minutes and you insert nickels, dimes and quarters into their slots - different bells ringing for each type of coin. When the system indicates to her that you have fully paid, she dials the number the call begins.
4. After three minutes, the Operator cuts in and asks for more money for the next time period.
5. You can say 'No thanks. Bye Charlie!' and then she'll disconnect you.
6. Of course, you can hang up at any point before your time is up.

The call on this day went on for some time and there was lots of shouting. This was partly due to the fact that there was often a lot of noise on the lines when compared to the volume of the voice in your ear. And there was shouting because of the surprise and the excitement of making this rare connection to a distant relative. My family didn't call people long distance often - because it was very expensive (the cost varied as the distance between callers). My parents in Lachine would spend hours per month on written correspondence to relatives at Lachute, Lac Saguay or Vercheres ... and perhaps telephone briefly only a couple of times per year when finalizing details of an imminent visit .

*  *  *

Victoriaville and the return trip is here:
CNR 1963 CRHA Excursion: 6167, Montreal to Victoriaville, Part 2

*  *  *

If you have read this far,
you are obviously forgiven for not digging into the
Mystery of Charlie Hardy!