Breaking!
90 years ago this month!
Did you know about this Pioneer Zephyr incident in Canada on 2 May 1934?
I'm reading a history of EMD (written by/for GM in 1948) which mentions this event.
No date is given in the book's account.
I was able to find a contemporary newspaper account.
I don't have an employee timetable which covers this line back then.
However ... after a westbound passed through an interlocking and a yard ... there was quite an elbow-bend at Essex.
The collision with the truck loaded with 'scrap iron' probably occurred at quite a low speed - and certainly nothing approaching 100 mph!
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| from: Lawrence (Kansas) Daily Journal-World, Wednesday, 2 May 1934 (Google newspapers) |
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This Ontario Northland public timetable is a recent purchase from a 'railway show'. What were then seen as endless opportunities in northern Ontario are reflected in the scope of the railway's transportation operations. The post-war development of the internal combustion engine and the new types of equipment it could power in the Canadian Shield were central to this economic optimism.
The prominent place given to the railway's new carbody units in this timetable indicates that the Government of Ontario endorsed the idea that 'you have to spend money to make money'. Or another perspective ... 'you can create significant labour and plant redundancies through the strategic application of new technologies'.
The last operation of a steam locomotive on the ONR took place on 25 June 1957.
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| Belle of Temagami in the 1940s from: Railway Steamships of Ontario; Dana Ashdown; 1988; Boston Mills Press. |
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| Chief Commanda, undated from: Steam Into Wilderness; Albert Tucker; 1978; Fitzhenry & Whiteside. |
