CPR 1958 General Instructions Pertaining to the Movement of Trains, Engines & Cars, Part 1

Don't leave diesels standing over hot ashpits ... and other good advice. At the point when the Canadian Pacific Railway still rostered everything from steam locomotives and wooden coaches, to the stainless steel Canadian equipment and Dayliners with oscillating headlights, this booklet covers a wide diversity of operating situations. 

from: Engine Houses & Turntables on Canadian Railways 1850-1950; Edward Forbes Bush; 1990; Boston Mills Press.

Above: CPR MacTier, Ontario, roundhouse built circa 1905. The photo is undated.

Paragraph (k), above: Do not leave your nice new diesel with all of its copper-wound traction motors sitting over the hot ashpit of coals in the foreground. It belongs on the Ready Track ... somewhere on the right.

from: Locomotive Breakdowns & Appliances; Cavey & Harding; 1931; International Textbook Press.

A water glass and three try cocks can be seen above. The water glass alone cannot be trusted to show the true level of water in the boiler. So three try cocks are also tapped in as a backup.

But ... the three try cocks cannot always be trusted to show the true level of water in the boiler. 

Above, the engine is working hard. Boiler geometry and the turbulence of the boiling water is causing the water at the boiler backhead to be deeper. The second try cock would give a false indication that there was enough water in the boiler. However, NONE is showing in the water glass - which is engineered to show the average depth of boiler water in most circumstances. (On another illustration, water glass water is shown with black colouring.)

Notice that the forward part of the boiler crown sheet is uncovered. 

A similar crown sheet uncovering problem could occur, for example, if the engine was climbing a hill.

If this situation is not corrected promptly, the crown sheet metal will be weakened by this over-temperature 'burning' which will require a costly repair and negative Brownie Points will be registered on the engine crewmen's records. 

 

... Or the crown sheet metal will fail completely in a catastrophic boiler explosion. The crew won't have to worry about discipline. All of their worries will be over.

The engineer and fireman each had their own set of boiler-water-level instruments to watch. A full boiler showing high stream pressure was what the engineer wanting to see just before racing away from a station stop with a heavy passenger train ... or hauling a freight train up a grade.

Notice that a water glass can be changed quickly after 'cutting it out' using the gauge cocks. Engine crews carried spare water glasses with them in case a water glass broke en route.

from: From Abbey to Zorra via Bagdad; Dale Wilson; 1980; Nickel Belt Rails.

The Second Section of Train 22 from Chicago, Detroit and Toronto 

passes two trains of commuter equipment at Vaudreuil, Quebec, in May 1958.

CPR 1958 General Instructions Pertaining to the Movement of Trains, Engines & Cars, Part 2

CPR 1958 General Instructions Pertaining to the Movement of Trains, Engines & Cars, Part 2

" .. cover the spilled radioactive material with at least 4 inches of earth or sand, using a longhandled shovel ... " 

... How long can I make the handle?

This booklet was supplemental to 'The Rulebook' and its instructions were to be followed with the same rigour and conscientiousness. 

I was pleased to find that this 1958 version referred to all of the 'overlapping' technologies as Canadian railroading went through its great conversion from steam to diesel motive power. Self-propelled [passenger] cars are also covered ... the new Dayliners.

This week, a commenter to a recent American YouTube semi-trailer crossing-fouling collision complained that we probably have had 'enough of the bell' ... in the minutes of video following the actual collision. I knew the reason for this annoyance and you'll find it in Part 1. 

... The lawyers who reviewed the booklet want someone to tell you to turn off the bell ... preferably a police officer. Then the Company has a witness who can testify that the rules were being followed and every precaution was being taken to prevent the accident. 

... Furthermore, if you have the time and energy after a crossing accident, you should draw the attention of others to the ringing bell ...  

BNSF: 'Thank you, Random Guy in the YouTube comments section!'

While the second half of the booklet isn't as oriented to moving trains as Part 1 is, there is plenty of effort put into writing the most airtight procedures possible. 

To make things a little less boring, an effort has been made to season all these old procedures with illustrations from the period in which it was published.

Consider the hazard that fire presented to railways ...

... On one hand, they had wooden stations (way back then), a rich inventory of wooden shanties and shacks, and creosoted-wooden-everything-else in the form of track ties, piles of new ties, piles of old ties, and secondary-route bridges and trestles. They transported tank cars of gasoline for the post-war automobile boom and chemicals for the miracle of plastics boom. The countryside might be seasonally dry and hot, with wild grasses or forests just needing a combustion source.

... On the other hand, they had external combustion engines with coal or oil fires drawing air and venting it in pulses, and firemen shaking and raking these coal fires from time to time. The traditional supplementary light sources (signals, markers) on locomotives and cabooses burned kerosene as did the traditional lanterns train crew used at night to give movement commands and to inspect problems in the dark. 

... Many of the wheel bearings were still packed with cotton waste and car oil ... and had the frustrating tendency to burst into flame. Steel brake shoes on many freight and passenger cars sometimes glowed red and produced cool-looking pinwheels of sparks against steel wheel treads - visibly dramatic at night. 

... And 'everybody smoked'. Passengers at stations and on trains with opening windows might not realize that it was not helpful when they threw their mostly-extinguished cigarettes just anywhere. 

Without the instructions in this booklet, it is probable that the whole railway would have burned down. 

from: Saturday Night Magazine; January 1957.

As the railways exited the 'coal age', society was well into the atomic age. Canadian uranium - probably generally shipped as lightly-radioactive ores - was being used to power Canadian nuclear reactors, American reactors and to supplement the eternal vigilance of America's nuclear-armed and atomic-powered armed forces. So four pages are devoted to rudimentary instructions on how to deal with radioactive shipments.

from: Canadian National Railways Magazine; October 1953.

$100 in 1953 dollars = $1175 in 2025 dollars

CPR official photo obtained by LC Gagnon in the early 1940s.
Eastbound in early 1977 at Schreiber ... a few stock cars of western Herefords were sometimes still seen martialled behind the power.

from: Petroleum, Prehistoric to Petrochemicals; GA Purdy; 1957; Copp Clark, Toronto.

from: Canadian National Railways Magazine; November 1953.
(2025 - The Edmonton address is still a private residence.)

End of Part 2.

CPR 1958 General Instructions Pertaining to the Movement of Trains, Engines & Cars, Part 1

CPR 1946 - Baggage Car Traffic Instructions

People often travelled with trunks and suitcases made of wood, metal or leather in the 1900-1950 era. Most long-distance travel was done by rail and ship.

It was not yet necessary to lift every piece of baggage up to 30,000 feet. This was also in an age before consumer products - such as luggage - were commonly made of lightweight plastics and aluminum.

Building heating systems were not particularly sophisticated (and home insulation was non-existent), particularly if people were living in small settlements where dwellings were heated by coal or wood stoves. A large house might be heated by a central furnace whose heat came up through a single, very large grate ... which was located in the centre of the house ... at the bottom of the main staircase. People packed more clothes and they were made from natural fibres and materials.

... Back when everything which travelled was heavy, the railways were well set up to handle it. With local freight, express and baggage operations in almost every small town ... domiciled in the settlement's railway station ... your brutally heavy trunk or valise was just one more item to load onto, or unload from, a railway car. And the railways had a call on lots of cheap labour to do all this loading and unloading.

... Enter the agents, baggagemasters, baggagemen ... and porters and/or labourers at larger settlements. They had the handcarts, platform wagons, sleds and other devices ... and they knew how to use them! But there was still a lot of human brute force involved to move the baggage.

The engineer, fireman and conductor generally intrigue us the most. However, as you'll see by glancing over these procedures, the people handling baggage had to know their stuff and pay attention to detail - or they'd hear about it. Just the volume of material (the sheer number of pieces) which travelled through stations and via baggage cars is hard to imagine today.

These workers first had to have a lot of regional geographical knowledge. They also had to have some perspective of the Spans the World transportation empire and how something should get from Point A to Point P (changing trains at Point K) and then on by ocean to Point X. They were expected never to make mistakes when handling objects in bond as they crossed back and forth across international boundaries. 

Above all, they were to protect the Company from being cheated out of its due by all manner of grifters, liars, thieves, fraudsters and outright professional criminals. 

In the instructions: 

... Paper forms and perforated cardboard tags on strings must all be completed and handled in the prescribed manner. Reports must submitted it a timely manner with all the supporting paperwork in the prescribed format. Paperwork must be passed on to your relief in good order.

Has a suitcase in the baggage car overshot its station? Does baggage need to be set off in the bush or at a closed station where no agent is on duty? Does a passenger need their digitalis which went into their steamer trunk in the baggage car, instead of their pocket? Are you transporting dogs? Wait, is that milk or cream being loaded? Were those returning empty milk cans transported to the dairy by truck? Is that a case of dynamite on the baggage wagon? Is there motion picture film stock in that box? What looks like a court order has been placed in your hand - what do you do?

Nowhere are safe lifting techniques mentioned or promoted. 

Sadly, even as an act of catharsis, one is not allowed to drop that loathsome trunk, probably filled with lead (perhaps someone's professional library), from the baggage car door to the platform at its destination. Nope.

Here is yet another facet of the 'human experience' of railroading ...

CPR official photo, obtained circa 1943 by LC Gagnon.

from: Quebec 1850-1950; Lionel Koffler; 2005; Firefly books.

The CPR station at Gracefield, Quebec in 1914.