CNR 1994 Helston, Manitoba - A Branch Line Prairie Town

Late on a hazy July day in 1994, Dr Wilf Schellenberg (my uncle) indulges my request to pose in a photo.

Eric and I had visited Wilf's home town in 1979 with our Aunt Rosemary and Uncle Wilf.

Parts of the line had been approved for abandonment in the preceding years.

Thank you to Eric Gagnon for sending this photo from that evening!

Rosemary and Dr Wilf Schellenberg, circa 1979. 

Photo by Eric Gagnon

*  *  *

Photos which follow below are from a visit my spouse and I made with Rosemary and Wilf in 1994. 

This was a couple of weeks before the dedication of a memorial to the Helston school which Wilf had attended. 

His family's farm had been nearby.

from: http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/sites/bertonschool.shtml

It was nice to be able to find a photo of the school on the internet.

The history of Helston and a photo of the final physical appearance of the memorial follow.

from: Railroad Map of Western Canada; undated, circa 1955; Canadian Freight Association.

Over the years, Wilf and Rosemary gave us all many, many tours of Manitoba attractions and also provided technical advice on trips Susan and I took on our own - such as a train trip to Churchill. Partly as a consequence of this royal treatment, I never had to navigate to Helston on my own and it has always been difficult for me to pinpoint the location ( ... at least before Google).

I've found an easy method (on the map above) for you to find it:

• On the map, CPR lines are red, CNR lines are blue. 
• Find Portage la Prairie.
• Working your way west from Portage, locate the first station where a blue CNR line branches into two lines (at Muir, Manitoba). 
• Helston is the next station west of Muir.

You can see how interlaced the rival railway lines were, back when grain was often drawn to the nearest elevator by horses. 

With the march of technology - all-weather roads, trucks which could carry large loads of grain, larger computer-automated elevators and grain cars of much higher capacity - some of these lines and elevators became less economically viable.

*  *  *

Below, on a railway territory map from 1915, you would find Helston (Berton)

between Neepawa Jct (Muir) and Carberry Jct.

This is in Canadian Northern Railway (light green) territory

Before the creation of Canadian National Railways,

you can see the Grand Trunk Pacific main line territory (pink),

competing with the Canadian Northern and Canadian Pacific (grey). 

This summer, I was able to bring together several documents originally from Wilf and Rosemary which document the history of Helston. 

Lansdowne was the name of a rural municipality and extracts from this local history book provide much of the detail.

The ballpoint handwriting of LC Gagnon (Rosemary's brother) often appears in the top right corner of the documents.

Official postal records for the Helston post office appear next:

Here are some historical details of the school's development:

Above and below, you can see the current Google Earth views of the former railway line as seen from Helston. The elevator is just to the west of 72 Rd W and you can spot it as it casts a long shadow to the north.

Above: We're looking east to the railway junction at Muir with the elevator almost right below us.

Below: We're looking west with the elevator across the road from the Helston label. The line curves to Lobbville and then follows a roadbed with many curves to avoid bodies of water and to maintain a fairly level operating profile. The branch connects with another line at Carberry Junction (map pin). Also notice the location (at the right margin) of the key railway operating point at Neepawa - north of Carberry Junction.

A larger version of the 1950s map is repeated below for your convenience and pleasure.

Below, is a (winter) public timetable from 1956-57.

Train 47 operated on Wednesday and Friday between Winnipeg and Russell, Manitoba.

(Russell is a CNR/CPR junction point at the northwest corner of the map above.)

Train 48 operated Thursday and Saturday between Russell and Winnipeg.

In both cases, these trains took about 10 hours to cover 224 miles.

Mixed train 517 was scheduled on Friday, operating between Portage and Dauphin.

Mixed train 518 was scheduled Saturday, operating between Dauphin and Portage.

(westbound after Helston, head north at Carberry Jct ... Neepawa ... McCreary ... Dauphin)

As a generalization, these engine and train crews would probably operate west on their regular train assignments,

before returning east on the 'opposite number' of the following day.

It has always been a source of wonder to me how Canadian railways in the steam age co-ordinated all their crews, equipment, coal and water as they provided service to all those prairie branch lines. 

from: Canadian National Railways public timetable. Effective 30 September 1956 to 27 April 1957.

Reference marks from the timetable above.

*  *  *

Below is a summer employee timetable for the following year - 1958. 

Trains 47 and 48 are operating on the same days as above. 

The mixed trains (517/518) are not shown on the employee timetable.

The Helston history above mentions the postmaster meeting the train. As the postal service adopted the use of trucks to transport sacks of mail in the 1950s, the loss of the mail subsidy often gave the railways the financial justification needed for authorization to cancel passenger service along some low traffic lines.

*  *  *

Returning to our brief visit in July 1994.

We were reaching the elevator for photos over what was probably private property at the time.

Above, the elevator appears out of the mists of time on this warm summer evening. 

The former road bed would have been quite close to the camera's right.

A nice railway tie fencepost.

Above: The south side of the elevator.

*  *  *

Here is a 'primary historical document' !

However, I have made the leaflet cover and interior into a single image.

Wilf and Rosemary were at the cairn dedication ceremony where this program was handed out.

Rosemary made contemporaneous notes on the program.

(Trivia: 'Bear Creek' also appears in an exclamatory sentence in the script of the movie Dr Strangelove.)

In the newspaper account below, you can see the final appearance of the stone cairn which was shown with Wilf in the first photo.

To understand how mail was delivered to Berton/Helston by Railway Post Office (RPO),

click on the link below.

CNR Berton & Helston MB - Postal Addendum 1904, 1914, 1918, 1923

CNR Berton & Helston MB - Postal Addendum 1904, 1914, 1918, 1923

This post looks at railway post office (RPO) arrangements for Berton/Helston. A significant amount of historical Canadian post office information is preserved at archive.org. This data does not contribute significant additional information about Berton/Helston's local history. However, it does provide a case study of how RPO service was organized by the Canadian government's postal service. It also shows how the service evolved as railway lines and settlement spread across the Prairies.

The Renaming of Berton to Helston

Government department names and website links change.

However, as I post this in 2022, if you search under this department:

Manitoba, Natural Resources and Northern Development

And click the underlying URL here:

Geographical Names of Manitoba

You will have an option of downloading a PDF of Manitoba's place names and their origins.

This is what the file shows for Helston:

And here is the link for 'Douglas 1933' at archive.org

Place Names of Manitoba, 1933

https://archive.org/details/P005678/mode/2up

*  *  *

The map below shows Helston and other significant points which will be mentioned in the postal documents. Key locations are hi-lited with yellow dots.

from: Railroad Map of Western Canada; undated, circa 1955; Canadian Freight Association.

As I worked with the on-line postal data, I realized that my copy of the book, below, could provide a little more background on the RPO routes. Entire pages are reproduced from this book with the salient paragraph hi-lited with a yellow dot.

A History of Canadian RPOs 1853-1967; LF Gillam, Ossett UK; self-published.

*  *  *

It seemed beneficial to provide the original pages in a consistent logical order for each date selected. You will notice there is general repetition of the same postal service instructions to employees from year to year. However, looking at the original documents and how they were modified gives one a better sense of how information was communicated back then, and how modifications were made to official routing documents in the field - i.e. using a fountain pen. 

I have included all the pages giving instructions about how operations were to be organized. The rest of the books simply list the post offices alphabetically.

There is no indication where these particular books of data were used and modified, but it seems likely they were not used at the main Ottawa offices of the postal service, given the informal updating process.

*  *  *

May 1904

This page gives general instructions:

This page shows each RPO route by: 1. Railway 2. End points of the RPO route 

3. How the route is abbreviated beside each post office listed in this directory.  

Here is the first page of the alphabetical listing ... along with its instructions.

This page shows Berton.

It is unusual because it shows the 

Canadian Pacific Railway W&Y (Winnipeg and Yorkton) RPO 

with distribution at Keyes.

Here is CPR Keyes. It is on the same CPR RPO route as Berton. 

Its mail arrives daily (i.e. ex Sun) on Trains 17 and 18.

A Google image with Helston (Berton) in the foreground and Keyes to the north.

Before RPO service began on the Canadian Northern Railway line through Berton,

the RPO travelling along the CPR through Keyes would have dropped off and picked up Helston's mail.

This page from the RPO history book gives a little background on the railway line

and the particular Winnipeg & Yorkton RPO which ran on the CPR.

(see the yellow dot)

*  *  *

March 1914

Here is the list of the various RPO routes.

This time, Berton will be on W & PA ... RPO (12).

W&PA is revealed to be Winnipeg and Prince Albert on the Canadian Northern.

The first page of alphabetical listings is included for its instructions.

Berton is on the Winnipeg and Prince Albert RPO, receiving daily service (ex Sun) on Train 3.

The text of the RPO book indicates that the original CNoR and GTP RPO routes 

were generally maintained after the advent of Canadian National Railways.

The pen corrections to the W&PA RPO 1 above - PA versus SR - are explained at the dot below.

*  *  *

1918

This is near the end of World War I. 

The Berton listing will be overwritten to show it is on the route of the WN&R RPO 

(written in on the page below).

Below, we learn that the WN&R is considered a Canadian National Railways route.

Winnipeg to Russell.

First page of the alphabetical listing for its instructions ...

Berton is shown on the WN&R RPO route receiving service MWF Sa(?) via Train 17.

The RPO book (yellow dot below) suggests that the WN&R route was perhaps a wartime anomaly.

... I think the government takeover of the Canadian Northern 

and the task of reorganizing and consolidating of the various routes,

even as the branch lines continued to be built/completed during the war,

could explain the unusual arrangement. 

It was probably a pretty chaotic period in western railway history.

Perhaps this was also done with the expectation that the Grand Trunk Pacific RPOs

would sooner or later be brought into the Canadian National fold.

*  *  *

1923

Regarding the name change from Berton to Helston.

Here is a link to the post office distribution list

showing the name change.

https://archive.org/details/man192300postuoft

(Unlike other archive.org documents, you will need to download a file to read it.)

Images from this book appear below.

This time, Berton will be shown under the W&SR RPO route of Canadian National.

This is number 12 on the sheet immediately below.

Winnipeg and Swan River.

Above, you can see the notation that Berton is now Helston.

There are a number of other similar RPO documents at archive.org,

particularly for later years of operation which you might find interesting.

This addendum has only been created to focus on Berton/Helston.