Toe Blake's Habs on rails stories, payday at Windsor Station's BMO branch, the Company's annual model railway layout ... and two items from Winnipeg and western Ontario comprise this post of CP Rail News items from 50 years ago.
The 'You Asked for It' feature is changing a little. Initially, the columnist promised to fearlessly answer any and all questions coming to him. However, the questions to the column are increasingly turning the title around to mean that when you promise to answer anything and everything, in hindsight you must remember that 'You Asked for It' !
... The questions are becoming a little more pointed and more strongly worded. For example: If we're all part of the CP 'family', why can't we use our CP Rail pass for air travel?
A relatively benign question appears below: After publishing several editions, why is this newspaper now printed on (in 2020, disintegrating) extra-thin, cheap newsprint ... rather than the strong glossy paper on which it began.
Concise answer: It's cheaper! ... And we call it 'glossy newsprint' by the way!
Some of the photos are very dark and were difficult for me to render with any detail. I don't know if the model railway layout photo includes glitter or 'snow' applied to the protective show window glass or if the photo is just reproduced very poorly on the glossy - might I say 'classy' ? - newsprint.
Perhaps managers ranking above the columnist - sensitive to the public profile presented in the house organ - will clamp down a little on publishing employees' complaints which put (they think) the Company in a bad light. What will the future bring for this column? ...
Beyond this potential 'complaints' column, these articles are interesting artifacts of the railway 50 years ago:
- A Christmas Windsor Station model railway described by the Company archivist.
- A new in-house crane-based operation which handles and welds rail.
- A bank where employees line up every two weeks to cash and/or deposit their paycheques.
- An explanation of the double track laid for the historic autumn grain rush to eastern lake ports.
