CNR 1963 CRHA Excursion: 6167, Montreal to Victoriaville

This post travels on a CRHA fantrip with CNR 6167 to Victoriaville QC during the last month of John F Kennedy's presidency. Below, inside a photo album, is the schedule for the day.

My father's note on the right margin refers to the flyer's cover, showing a CNR 6200-class locomotive accelerating out of Shawinigan. 

The name Charlie Hardy was mentioned many times over the years, but I never met him and we kids had only a child's red wooden rocking chair ('That's Charlie Hardy's chair.') as proof that he ever existed. For my siblings, at the end of this post are my father's notes - from my grandfather's notes - on the obscure Charlie Hardy connection. An Intercolonial engineer also figures into the story.

from: Atlas of Canada; 1915; Government of Canada.

The map above comes from a government atlas from 1915. We'll be staying mainly in pink 'Grand Trunk territory'. From Montreal, we'll be travelling east to St Hyacinthe and Richmond, then north to Victoriaville.

An 80mph runpast! 

Before we're done, you'll see another way we lived 'on the edge' in the carefree 1960s!

During this era, my father carried two cameras for his snapshots. 

Here you'll see square format colour slides and rectangular black and white prints.

Above, my father and I are photographed by my grandfather at around 08hr on an sunny late-October day. 

Engine 6167 has just backed onto its train at Central Station.

Using both films gives a measure of redundancy.
This view of 6167's nose shows better detail in the low light condition.

... with my grandfather.

Freed from any temptation to stake out a crowded dutch door or baggage car door,
we were among the few cognoscenti to be invited into the cab,
as we had already 'saved' our sealed-window seats with personal effects,
and had walked up to see our power.

... Just don't ask for a cab ride ... you've already been told!

The passenger in the cab door has exactly the same camera being used here by my father.

The cab above and below - taken by the two cameras.
Above, you can see this is a coal-burning engine with a mechanical stoker -
the coal is augered up that hump.

In colour, you can see a lot of extra painting has probably been done on this special excursion engine.
Notice the warming shelf with the long-necked oiler and the valve oil.
Veteran locomotive firemen can tell you the temperature of the fire by looking at its colour.

Scroll right and you'll see the engineer's side water glass and three red 'try cocks' to its right.
The try cocks tap into a column of boiler water at different depths.
Their discharge of hot water (and not steam) is a better check on
the critical coverage of the crown sheet than the convenient water glass.

You can also see cut-out cocks at the water glass.
If the glass breaks on the road, the crew will change it themselves.

Above, a CRHA motorcading bus getting photos and 8mm film of the train.
Back in the 1960s everybody lived on the edge like this ... Shoulda been there, dude!
Most of these guys are probably smokers, too.

... and I think the bus driver has been drinking.
The 'Quebec Provincial Police' didn't have breathalyzers back then.

Runpast at Otterburn Park.

Otterburn Park runpast continues.
This looks like a fairly typical railfan of the era.

Compare the stack with the previous photo and notice how quickly the fireman
stopped over-stoking the fire to produce black smoke to make the fans happy.

*  *  *

St Hyacinthe stop - above and below (to show train length).

Still at St Hyacinthe ... my father gets a nice unconventional photo of the engine, while a clear signal beckons us over the Yamaska River.

Notice the master mechanic, assistant superintendent, or other official - 'in uniform'.
There was always a trench-coated officer supervising these unusual operations.

Map is repeated below for your convenience ...

from: Atlas of Canada; 1915; Government of Canada.

Here's the high-speed run at Upton QC.
The fan near the station may be working with reel-to-reel sound equipment

Above, sitting in a 'cafeteria car' at the Richmond stop after the phone call to Charlie Hardy.
Whenever I smelled coffee, cigarettes and bleach - it spelled 'adventure'.

From the Richmond station, my father called Charlie Hardy at nearby Melbourne.
If it was on the map, Melbourne would be just southwest of Richmond - near Kingsbury.


Making a phone call:

1. Look up the phone number in the phonebook or dial zero and ask the Operator ... in English.
2. If it is a local call, drop a dime into the phone slot for dimes. The coin hits a bell to tell the system the call has been paid for. Dial your local number. (You have to do this to get the Operator, too. When she answers, the dime is refunded in the small coin drawer below.)
3. If the call is long distance, the Operator asks you to classify the call as Station-to-Station, or Person-to-Person. The latter costs more because she gets the actual person on the line before the call timer on her end starts. She tells you the price for the first three minutes and you insert nickels, dimes and quarters into their slots - different bells ringing for each type of coin. When the system indicates to her that you have fully paid, she dials the number the call begins.
4. After three minutes, the Operator cuts in and asks for more money for the next time period.
5. You can say 'No thanks. Bye Charlie!' and then she'll disconnect you.
6. Of course, you can hang up at any point before your time is up.

The call on this day went on for some time and there was lots of shouting. This was partly due to the fact that there was often a lot of noise on the lines when compared to the volume of the voice in your ear. And there was shouting because of the surprise and the excitement of making this rare connection to a distant relative. My family didn't call people long distance often - because it was very expensive (the cost varied as the distance between callers). My parents in Lachine would spend hours per month on written correspondence to relatives at Lachute, Lac Saguay or Vercheres ... and perhaps telephone briefly only a couple of times per year when finalizing details of an imminent visit .

*  *  *

Victoriaville and the return trip is here:
CNR 1963 CRHA Excursion: 6167, Montreal to Victoriaville, Part 2

*  *  *

If you have read this far,
you are obviously forgiven for not digging into the
Mystery of Charlie Hardy!

Central Station Turbo Maintenance Area, Turbo 1974-82

This post presents additional newspaper clippings my father filed about the Turbo train.
They span the period from 1974 to the Turbo's retirement in late 1982.

The captions aren't matched with the correct photos.

*  *  *

This series on the Turbo train began because I wanted to get this artifact (below) on the internet so people who are interested in this subject, or those doing research in the future, could have access to it. The title of this post tags the document to make it easier to find.

This rough diagram of the lower level of tracks at Montreal's Central Station may originate from the Turbo's introduction to service, or it may have been produced later ... for example, in 1971, when the train length and configuration was being changed from its original. I have introduced it at this point because the article above mentions the United Aircraft of Canada employees working at this location.

I bought this diagram a number of years ago at the Kingston railway show. The vendor (I suspect, the original owner) had gone to the extent of producing an interpretive 'label' in the form of a sheet of paper with computer printer images of both Central Station and the Turbo on it. I assured him the diagram was going to a good home, and with this posting it is - yours.

The original is on heavy tracing paper which has become dark brown with age. The drawing and writing has been done with various sizes of black felt-tipped markers. The overall size is the equivalent of 4 sheets of 8x11 paper laid side-by-side.

This software platform often frustrates my attempts to post larger items in sufficient detail that readers can read or download them. In all cases below, you will need to scroll to the right to see the entire document. It took a number of tries to find a size and format which made the document useful to readers.

The first image shows the entire document as an overview.

Then, the following two images show two halves of it in sufficient detail so you can read all the written characters. The word 'SOUTH' is duplicated on both halves to serve as an anchor - if you want to stitch them back together. 

The two halves (below) ...

*  *  *

There is a significant gap of a few years in my father's clipping file on the Turbo - maybe everyone got tired of reading about it. The last article (March 1972) in a previous post foretold of a Turbo return in early 1973.

I have left out a Toronto Star clipping from June 23, 1973. This pits the speed of a Turbo trip against an Air Canada flight - using downtown Toronto and downtown Montreal as the travel points. The reporter took the Turbo east and Air Canada west, back to Toronto. Other key points: His flight left Montreal 80 minutes late and he checked his bag on the plane, requiring a delay at the carousel.

Excerpts ...

"A ride on the super-train ... Turbo Beats Jet by 35 Minutes" 

' The Terrible Turbo - Canadian National Railways' super-train with a remarkable propensity for breaking down - has made a comeback. ' 

' Now, almost a year and a half and some 100 modifications later, the Turbo is back ' 

' However, the [other] Turbo from Montreal to Toronto arrived at Union Station last night 56 minutes late. The lights went off and the air-conditioning failed, giving passengers an unscheduled 35 minute stop at Cornwall. This train made the 337 mile run in 5 hours and 6 minutes with one engine shut down after the Cornwall stop. ' 

There is a lengthy comparison of leg room, etc, and the food and drink offered.

' [On the reporter's train]: Most complaints centred on the fact that CN has dropped the traditional dining car. [passenger quote]: "It seems to me that this eating at your seat might be efficient but I hate to see the passing of the train dining car. There is something quite elegant about dinner aboard a train. It was the worst thing they could have picked up from the airlines." ' [end of article]

*  *  *

April 26, 1976

... That's quite a model of the Turbo you have there!
The jumble of text includes non-Turbo trains.

My first ride on the Turbo was in April or May 1976 - returning from a job interview.
I remembered it as being low to the ground, fast and hard-riding.
And now I wonder if I could have had a train with a dining car.

*  *  *

*  *  *

June 12, 1976

*  *  *

July 23, 1976

That's quite a drawing of the Turbo you have there!


In case you are not a Turbo fan, here is a brief digression.
It's another distance expression for the public which invokes the moon
from a 1950 Trains magazine.
It seems that almost every aspect of the Turbo had already been 'done' somewhere else before.

*  *  *

December 20, 1976

They are like heavily-laden prospectors of the late 1800s, at a northern Ontario flag stop, clambering aboard from the level of the ballast. They are herded in through one door into one car, so they can be supervised. Shack is the conductor today, and no one is going to ride for free!
(cf. Emperor of the North)

You take this exquisitely engineered greyhound of the rails, bank it at high speed through the curves ... but you don't do anything to ameliorate dwell time or 'customer experience'.

*  *  *

March 11 1977

Don't be confused by spin: The 'next generation' is very different from a 'new generation'.



May 31, 1979

In a later article in another paper, a fuel line leak was speculated to be a possible cause.

This article was preserved as a photocopy.

*  *  *

The images below come from the dinnertime arrivals of the Turbos to Kingston. I probably took them in 1982. In the first you can see the tower of Collins Bay Penitentiary in the distance. It was also during this time in VIA history that the Canadian travelled between Montreal and Toronto through Kingston.

The westbound gets a pull-by inspection by some passengers as it stops at the station.

At least one more post will follow with the enthusiastic and optimistic
 late-1960s descriptions of the Turbo technology and what it was expected to achieve.