Rolly Martin Country: CP 1941 Annual Report & Flags Which Fall

Press release:

CPKC becomes the first and only single-line railway connecting Canada, the U.S. and Mexico

CALGARY, AB, April 14, 2023 /CNW/ - Canadian Pacific ("CP") and Kansas City Southern ("KCS") today combined to create Canadian Pacific Kansas City (TSX: CP) (NYSE: CP) ("CPKC"), as authorized by the U.S. Surface Transportation Board's ("STB") March 15, 2023 final decision, creating the first single-line railway connecting Canada, the U.S., and Mexico.

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'In 1885, our railroad connected a new country.'

from: The final (2022) annual report of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

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'A start at documenting recently departed railroads was made by David P Morgan and J David Ingles in a series of articles titled 'Fallen Flags' in Trains Magazine. Those articles reviewed the major railroads that had vanished since World War Two, and their theme was the genesis of this book.'

from: The Historical Guide to North American Railroads; George H Drury; 1985; Kalmbach.

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Detail from: Battle of Isandhlwana, 1879 - "as it probably never was"
from: Great Military Blunders; Geoffrey Regan; 2000; Macmillan.

from: British Flags on Land and Sea; Andrew D MacLean; 1929; Hugh C MacLean Publications Ltd, Toronto.
On Page17, the 1627 origins of the white, blue and red ensigns are discussed.

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'Railways draw traffic from a geographic area, move it over their network, and distribute it to their final destination using their own facilities, equipment, and in some cases, those of other carriers. The railway's infrastructure in many cases evolved over time (e.g., Canadian Pacific's transcontinental network was first established in 1867).'

from:

Handbook of Canadian Security Analysis,

A Guide to Evaluating the Industry Sectors of the Market, from Bay Street's Top Analysts

(Joe Kan, CFA; 1997; Wiley & Sons)

Quote is from the chapter on Transportation & Environmental Services, by [name redacted], CFA.

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'Rally 'Round the Flag'

From some source in the past, I understood that history is helpful because it helps explain who we are and how we got here.

Historiography is the study of historical writing.

Regimental flags, battle flags, national flags, imperial flags have a special meaning because of what they represent. They represent The Regiment and its Battle Honours ... or the ideals of the people fighting and dying in battle. There have been terrible losses when the flag 'falls'. It only happens when an army is utterly defeated - there is no one left with the remaining strength to prevent the flag from touching the ground, or from being disgraced by a victorious enemy.

The Canadian Pacific Railway has always been larger than a simple railway - in what it was intended to achieve politically and practically, and in what the company's leaders intended it to be. It was conceived to settle the former Hudson's Bay lands and ensure 'the west' became part of British North America - not part of the United States. It was a land and sea bridge which spanned much of the British Empire and was ready to serve the needs of the British Empire/British Commonwealth in two world wars. Of course, the Canadian Pacific received money in the course of performing these missions.

In the Great War, it transported labourers from China by ship, and across Canada (in bond), to labour in or near the trenches in Europe. It contributed the expertise of its railway workers and equipment to build and maintain rail transport to the trenches. Its passenger ships were requisitioned as troop transports by the Royal Navy (but sometimes they asked first). In its stations the railway subsequently erected beautiful and poignant statues to pay tribute to its own employees who had made the supreme sacrifice in war.

In World War Two, the railway's airline personnel were key in the early establishment of the innovative system which would fly new aircraft to Britain from North America - avoiding the U-boat infested waters of the North Atlantic. CPR airline personnel and facilities also played an important role in the plan to train Commonwealth (and American) citizens as pilots and in other flight crew roles. Until amphibious landings could be made in Africa, Italy, France ... Britain defended itself and struck out at the enemy primarily with aircraft. CPR heavy shops were also used in the production of guns and tanks.

The CPR is a corporation, and a corporation is a legal entity, and its board of directors acts as its fiduciary. Ideally, under an independent chair, the board also directly supervises high-level corporate officers such as the 'President and CEO'. Other company officers are hired to lead and supervise the running of the corporation's day-to-day business.

A corporation is in an excellent position to facilitate the writing of its own history through cooperative authors. Books with titles such as The Imperial Highway (1912) and Steel of Empire: The Romantic History of the Canadian Pacific (1937) reminded people of the importance of the Canadian Pacific - just before the wars mentioned above. A corporation is designed to preserve itself, so from a historiographical and public relations standpoint, that's exactly what it does.

... Those poignant statues were designed to tug at our old imperial, patriotic and religious heartstrings - they are not photographs of a railway volunteer's death by artillery. It is normal healthy corporate behaviour to make us feel grateful to them for honouring 'their' troops. And today they still do this with paint.

Moving closer to the subject of paint - if tomorrow, just the signs and paper coffee cups suddenly said Babe Ruths instead of Tim Hortons ... it wouldn't change the fact that 'Timmies' is controlled by 3G Capital. 3G wouldn't employ more or fewer Canadians. Employees wouldn't get paid more or less. The menu wouldn't change. Babe Ruths wouldn't be a more or less valuable contributor to the quality of Canadian life than it was under its former name. It would just look different and some people might feel differently about it. Of course, the business would receive advice not to make this change if it had an impact on revenues.

Running trades employees of a railway corporation may have liked the camaraderie they shared with their fellow employees. They may have loved their unique work on the good days. They may have been proud of their achievements during their careers - particularly when winning a key 'battle' against the elements or other circumstances. Railways are still organized along paramilitary lines in many ways.

... But it seems very unlikely that running trades employees love the board of directors.

In turn, did board members become emotional, inconsolable ... when the railway left Rogers Pass and its snowsheds, REITed out its hotels, tore up the DAR, converted to roller bearings, eliminated its fleets of passenger ships, closed Angus, moved CPR headquarters from Montreal to Calgary, diminished The Canadian?

... Knowing corporate history and being able to explain the human experience of CPR railroading is not the board's job. The present, and the foreseeable future of the corporation is the board's focus.

Amateur and professional historians can point out the remaining physical artifacts, the stations, the roadbeds, the cuts and embankments which remain on the land as a record of the CPR's presence across Canada. They can explain the significance of what the board and officers achieved (always indirectly) through the work of the corporation's employees.

The human experience of those employees has probably always been the most Canadian thing about the Canadian Pacific Railway.

In the past, the CPR eagerly and willingly served the far-flung British Empire. The company is now eagerly and willingly integrated into the American 'post-war, rules-based' economic and military empire, as a 'pure play' railway ... sorry ... railroad.

Whether or not the locomotives of two large railways have the letter 'C' painted on them

is a facile, superficial and doomed way to understand and preserve our national identity.

The knowledge and interpretation of history is supposed to help us with that task.

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The annual report which follows,

comes from the end of the presidency of

the first Canadian-born president of the CPR.

Typical of our political and economic orientation at the time ...

he was knighted by the King to be ...

Knight Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire