1954 CPR Freight Car Equipment, Passenger Train Equipment

This Official Equipment Register list of CPR equipment was printed on coloured paper. Perhaps this was done to ensure that outdated editions - on other colours of paper - were discarded. To reduce eyestrain for readers, I've taken the colour away so you can maximize your pleasure as you squint at the fine print. 

Consider the year of this list and give yourself 10 Bonus Points if you already know why this 70 year old list was historic for the CPR. In my opinion, the answer appears within the last two pages. 

There is quite a diversity of railway history and equipment in this document. While most readers will find at least one detail which matches their interests, I have tried to make things less dry by inserting a few photos. LC Gagnon acquired a few builders' photos in the 1940s. I have inserted each photo after the page of the roster in which the car appears. 

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Intercolonial Railway, Locomotive Roster (1875-1910)

Always with an eye for important historical data to be kept on file, LC Gagnon saved this ICR roster from an August 1966 copy of Railroad magazine. While it represents a specialized piece of Canadian history, it could be valuable to anyone interested in this era. I have left some of the peripheral articles and ads in the scans as some of them might be of historical interest themselves (e.g. one contains the use of the term 'hoboes').

The roster was compiled by The Railway & Locomotive Historical Society, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary as I post this. 

You can see a photo of its founder and president, Charles E Fisher (also the person who contributed this roster to Railroad magazine) at the top left of the linked page. Note 03 at the bottom of the same webpage confirms this. (The link is active in 2021).

Railway & Locomotive Historical Society, Centennial Page

For this roster ...

• The notes reference numbers form the column at the extreme right of all five pages and reach 211. 
• The corresponding notes text appears with the numbers bracketed, for example (211), on the first two pages.

Can't get enough of the Intercolonial?

A long time ago, on an earlier website, I wrote a piece about the Intercolonial and Sandford Fleming. That whole website was capped by my ISP at 100MB - about the size of just one of the page images reproduced above. 

The webpage linked below includes my transcription of the 1876 rulebook. (Back then, green was the colour used to signal proceed with caution, and white was proceed. It also refers to keeping a prescribed number of links and pins on hand). 

The rulebook for this government railway came into being through the equivalent of an Order in Council and I found it in a book of old laws of the 'Parliament of Great Britain' - because that's how things got done back then ... Queen Victoria would review Canada's proposed laws and email them back with some funny cat videos which she thought Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie hadn't yet seen.

It is another piece of specialized Intercolonial history, and early Canadian railroading procedures ... if you are interested ... 

Sandford Fleming & the Intercolonial Railway