Rolly Martin Country: Portage la Prairie Lines, Part 10

Extracts from this employee timetable have the most detail about the operations and features of the lines through Portage la Prairie. Working to better understand the changing face of railway operations through Portage over the years, I have selected the subdivisions radiating from Portage and some connected CNR lines of interest to include from this timetable.

The timetable sheets appear in page order.

These sheets provide additional detail.

Page 10 - Special instructions - Operating between East Tower and West Tower.

Page 26 - Speed restrictions for all power - steam and diesel.

Page 27 - All train order offices are listed with their hours of operation.

Page 28 - Restricted clearances not marked by tell-tales - including coal docks and water tanks.

Page 29-31 - Steam and diesel equated tonnage ratings.

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I was at 'the postcard show' last weekend and was happy to discover the postcard above.

This station was built in 1902 and is (naturally) on the Neepawa Subdivision timetable sheet below.

The lower quadrant train order signal and the long skirts are signs of the times.

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As usual, I have produced facing-page spreads for the same subdivision as one image.

While you'll need to scroll far to the right, you'll be able to easily see the scheduled meets in boldface type (eg. No 1, No 790 23.53).

Detail from 'Portage la Prairie, 1950'. Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/manitobamaps/

The Portage map above is wonderfully out of date in its railway features. It helps us identify which enduring features of the Portage CNR tracks originated with which antecedent railway. An old 1915 map appears below. The Canadian Northern is shown in badly-faded blue. The Grand Trunk Pacific streaks in and out of town - without doing much - in orange. As you'll remember, the Great Northern (dashed line above, black line below) was long gone from Portage by 1958.

from: Atlas of Canada; 1915; Minister of the Interior.

While it is kind of old, this larger section of the 1915 map is the best for showing the CNR lines and as many of the settlements as possible in an uncluttered way. Hopefully this will be helpful for locating some of the more obscure subdivisions from the timetable and seeing how they fit into the overall system(s).