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

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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.

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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.

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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)

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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.

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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.

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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.

Postal Car (RPO) Heating 1912

'It has never been found practical to depend on postal clerks to manipulate any complicated form of heating apparatus.'

from: On Track, The Railway Mail Service in Canada; Susan McLeod O'Reilly; 1992; Canadian Museum of Civilization.

Above: Probably on a main line, circa 1925, a Canadian mail car's operations can be seen. The striped bag contains registered mail. Notice the twine 'dispensers'. The installation of a sorting table in the aisle can be seen, as well as a floor mount for another table. The pigeon holes at the right bear temporary destination labels. The car interiors were quickly reconfigured to adapt to the rapidly changing demands during a trip.

The main part of this post looks at a steam heat system from 1912.

As the catalogue text notes, snatching bags of mail from wayside catchposts, at the same time that bags containing local mail were thrown off, necessitated having the car's door open at speed in all types of weather. 

Railways, using the threat of their typical macho Prussian discipline, ensured that railway trainmen treated steam/water pipes, valves, etc, exactly as prescribed in freezing weather. 

However, RPO staff did not report to railway management ... So, there!

Consequently, this American steam heat equipment vendor encourages the prospective purchasing railway to accept the things it cannot micromanage and do everyone a favour by keeping things simple for the busy RPO staff.

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From the dawn of railways in North America, lighting and heating had been provided within wooden passenger car equipment by oil lamps ... and car stoves which burned wood, coal or coke. In many trainwrecks, passengers were injured or killed while trapped in the wreckage ... because lighting and heating appliances had broken open and allowed their burning fuels to set the wooden wreckage on fire.

Eventually, safer alternatives such as Pintsch gas and electricity for light, and steam piped through a train line from the locomotive for heat, were used. 

You'll notice that the RPO stove offered for sale below is an emergency stove intended for use when steam is not available from the locomotive or local steam plants.

Because this catalogue bears the address of a local company agent in Montreal, 

I searched for the location of this company's office in what was then Canada's railway capital. 

On the Google image below, the top left (north west) corner of the image 

is the current entrance to Central Station. 

There is no longer a building at the red 'pushpin' address on Dalhousie. 

It is shown to be a perfectly flat Astro-turf courtyard, framed by grey shipping containers.

While neither the viaduct nor Central Station existed in 1912, 

the Dalhousie Street location was centrally located with respect to 

the GTR Point St Charles shops, GTR Bonaventure station and the CPR Glen Yard. 

It was also close to the eastern end of the Lachine Canal and Montreal harbour.

Google 2022

At ground level at 61 Dalhousie, the neighbouring building (below) is architecturally interesting. 

Over the closest 'people door' is a monogram which I have inset into the image below.

To recap: The catalogue was issued by an company agent on this street.

His office would have been located near the trees at the right.

Google 2016, 2017

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From the catalogue:

When the diagrams/descriptions are not particularly clear, I try to provide a summary of key points.

Unfortunately, the colour diagram on Pages 2, 3 is damaged.

Summing up the steam heat system:

As one would expect, filling an RPO with high pressure steam (from a broken pipe/valve) would be just as deadly as filling it with burning fuel. Consequently, the manufacturer provides a simple vapour system using steam at atmospheric pressure ... with several heating coils in various parts of the car and a number of valves to control them. 

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Heating a postal car when no steam is available:

The stove features a central combustion tube. A fuel door above, and a small cleanout door below, are both self-latching ... and both doors have grates which can be opened using the attached knobs to admit varying amounts of combustion air. Should the stove become upset or detached from its vertical exhaust pipe (not shown) a deflector plate is supposed to seal the exhaust area at the top of the combustion tube. The stove would usually be used when locomotive steam heat was not attached - so one assumes it would almost always be used only when the car was stationary.

Surrounding the central combustion tube are two air jackets. These air jackets shield people and combustible materials from the intense heat of the central combustion tube. Air drawn in at the bottom of these jackets rises up the outside of the combustion tube and rejoins the room air at the top of the stove. Using the lever below the cleanout door, the operator can select car air or exterior air from beneath the car floor as the source of air which is channeled up through these air jackets.