CPR 1953 History of Canadian Pacific Scenic Dome Cars

From the CPR Spanner employee magazine comes this article with no byline. However, when you get to the diagram of Car 515, many will instantly know the author. This article was clipped by 26-year-old CPR employee LC Gagnon.

I tried several 'treatments' of the photographs of older rolling stock which I enlarged to hopefully provide more detail. The best outcomes came from minimal adjustments. Some of the originals are light enough that the under-car detail can be seen.

LC Gagnon had just travelled on his third vacation - partially paid for by an employee pass - to the west coast. He ended up waiting a few decades before he finally had the opportunity to ride in NR Crump's stainless steel dome cars. 

His 'hard luck' late-summer open-air exposure to creosote, Rocky Mountain brake smoke, locomotive smoke, steam whistles, stack noise and bolted rail is partially documented at the link below. 

CPR 1950 Banff to Field

Additional trip segments are available for viewing on the Short Subjects 02 index page (click the 'radio button' on the title bar). Just look under 'CPR 1950'.

Considering the full period of time since the CPR last spike until today ... 

The survivors of the CPR Budd stainless-steel purchase have been in continuous service on Canadian rails for more than half of that period.

end

1955 RDC Article: Prices & Optional Equipment Supplied with non-US Sales

Here is more information about the early use of the revolutionary Budd Rail Diesel Car:

This historically-interesting article shows general prices, sales worldwide at this point in history, and the optional equipment supplied to particular foreign railways. The US data is probably very well known so it is not included, but the tally of units sold to individual US railroads is here.

As always, I save and load long columns with exactly the same pixel width (to provide you with a world-class pleasure-maximizing uniform print size experience) ... nevertheless, some Google algorithm always alters their display size, based on an mathematical formula known but to them.

A tale of the demonstrator's encounter with Canadian snow is included. The Budd company must have been very busy turning out rolling stock at this time and a couple of ads related to CPR's The Canadian are also included below. They come from the same edition of the magazine.

More articles on Budd Rail Diesel Cars can be found under Railway Technology & Systems 04 (button located in the banner, above)

under the heading: Diesels, The First Generation.

Considering US inflation,
$160,000 in 1955
equals about $1.5 million in USD in 2019.

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"Transcribed Music": I do not think it means what they think it means.

Long before the VIA HEP program ... during many trips on Budd equipment in the late 20th Century ...  On only one occasion (in 1979), shortly after leaving Vancouver on the CPR route with all Budd sleeping cars, did I actually hear Muzak coming through the room speaker in my roomette. There was a rotating selector switch which included options for "Music" and "PA" in sleeping car rooms on the Budd equipment. 

I think there was originally a reel-to-reel tape player in a locker in the Budd dining car for this. There must have been an 'old-school' CPR employee working that day who was pleased to find the equipment to be in working condition!

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Probably you have already seen many examples of this artist's work.
You try to get a train picture in the Rockies and a little Bighorn Sheep pops into it!


A once-famous internet meme:

A variation on a meme.