The year the CPR crossed Alberta 1883

I found this map in a copy of the July-August 1883 copy of Canada Rail magazine.

It covers the the progress the CPR made in 1883 starting just East of Maple Creek in April and ending at Laggan in November.
It made it to Calgary in August that year.
Fascinating.

A story from the days of Steam!

 Todays story comes from Thom Cholowski, Administrator of the Historic Saskatchewan FB page. Enjoy 73

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Funny railway story from the steam days as told to me by a veteran Canadian Pacific Railway engineer.

Alex Lucak (1918-2011) had a 35 year career with the CPR beginning in 1943, working primarily out of Sutherland (Saskatoon). I had the pleasure of interviewing him several times about his career and he shared many colourful stories, especially about his time working on steam locomotives.

Alex was normally a quiet, dignified and proper gentleman in the time that I knew him, but as he got to know me and understood my background (having worked almost 20,000 hours as a steam locomotive engineer/fisherman/mechanic, mostly on ex CPR steam locomotives), he found somewhat of a kindred spirit who, as I ‘spoke his language’ gradually viewed me as a colleague rather than a curious youngster.

As his trust grew, he began to readily share life experiences and open up. He loved talking, becoming more lively in his stories and - I say this with the upmost respect- started to freely use more and more ‘colourful’ language that would be wholly appropriate in the cab of a locomotive.

When Alex would share his stories with me, a funny thing would happen, almost every single time. Alex used to walk hunched over, with a stoop and the assistance of a cane. When he would begin his stories he would shuffle over to a chair and get comfortable sitting with his hands on his legs, leaning forward for the important details, raising his bushy eyebrows, while his right hand rested on his cane. As the story went on, Alex would start to wave his hands around and at some point, he would stand up to ‘go through the motions’ to demonstrate his adventure. Invariably, by the time he reached the end, the cane was gone and Alex was up out of his chair, bouncing around the room, hands wildly gesturing, standing fully upright, slapping his knee and laughing heartily.

One time, at the end of a story his wife Anne came in and in shock said ‘Alex! You’re standing upright!!!’, to which he replied with out missing a beat ‘Well how the Hell else am I supposed to stand?’😆

Anyhow, on to the story.

Alex had just completed his 3 student trips under the supervision of a ‘set up’ fireman and was called up off the spare board to go on his first trip by himself on a night time freight run onboard a #2500 series, G2 class ‘Pacific’, 4-6-2 locomotive. This class was not equipped with a ‘mechanical’ stoker to feed coal into the firebox, so Alex had his job cut out for him shoveling a scoop full at a time into the hungry firebox.

The run was between Sutherland and Wynyard, a distance of 113 miles, and with the heavy freight train, Alex would have to shovel by hand almost 14 tons of coal to get the engine over the road.

They had just passed the halfway point at Lanigan when Alex paused to wipe the sweat from his brow. He gazed up at the engineer’s seat box and his blood ran ice cold.

The engineer was no where in sight.

The cab of a CPR steam locomotive is a small, cozy place that is designed for a singular purpose of running a locomotive and there is nowhere a person can hide. Alex, frozen in fear, mid pose as he was wiping his brow, quickly scanned the cab for any trace of the engineer.

He was simply gone.

Alex quickly took stock of his situation. He was completely alone in the cab of a steam locomotive, at night, doing 35 miles per hour, with a fully loaded freight train behind him, full of steam and heading to Wynyard, and the engineer, THE person in control of the whole show was nowhere to be found.

Frozen in absolute terror, Alex contemplated his options and indeed, the entirety of his life and the choices that led him to this exact moment.

Before Alex could react, he watched the engineer shuffle by the OUTSIDE of the cab window, hand over hand, swing in through the cab door and assume his position in the engineer’s seat. He adjusted his coat and pants, pulled out his pipe placing it between his teeth, tamped and lit it and set his hand authoritatively on the throttle as if nothing had happened.

Alex stood there dumbfounded. The engineer looked up and down at him and said ‘What…the headlight was dirty!’

Alex shook his head in disbelief and went back to the routine of taking a shovel of coal, taking a few steps ‘doing the dance’, stepping on the pedal to open the ‘butterfly’ doors of the firebox to feed the iron horse and repeating the process until the got to Wynyard.

Now for those unfamiliar with steam locomotives, what had happened was this- the seasoned engineer, knowing that this was Alex’s first solo trip had pulled a prank on him.

While the train was running at 35 miles per hour, and while Alex was preoccupied with shoveling coal, he had set the throttle, and using the handrails along the outside of the cab and boiler, walked along the length of the speeding locomotive to ‘wipe the headlight’ with a handful of cotton waste, at the prow of the engine and return! Some joke!

I will always treasure the stories told to me by Alex and his fellow railroaders of that generation who have long since gone to the great ‘roundhouse in the sky’.

Alberta MTC Line at Supertrain 2025

 During Supertrain in Calgary this year I was interviewed by the Ham Radio Blogger Vince d'Eon.
Check it out!
73

History in the making... with a golden key!

 PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT ASSISTS CAMP FIRE GIRLS IN OPENING NEW NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS IN NEW YORK. WASHINGTON, D.C. MARCH 6. THE MUCH COVETED HONOR OF BEING THE FIRST YOUNGSTER TO PRESS THE HISTORIC GOLD TELEGRAPH KEY USED BY PRESIDENTS WENT TODAY TO CAMP FIRE GIRL JANE BRANDT, RIGHT, AS SHE ASSISTED PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT, HONORARY PRESIDENT OF THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS, IN LIGHTING BY WIRE THE CROSSED LOGS AND FLAME LAMP IN THE ORGANIZATION'S NEW NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS IN NEW YORK CITY. TODAY'S CEREMONY MARKED THE 27TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS. ON THE LEFT IS CAMP FIRE GIRL MARGARET PATSY BIRGE.

Welcome to 2025.

 Hello everyone and welcome to 2025.

The Calgary chapter of the Morse Telegraph Club says goodbye to the old year and hello to the new on a high note indeed.

Membership continues to climb with the addition of several new members including one young girl who is a junior high school student and is the youngest member in all of the MTC. She joined the CG chapter after attending a telegraphy camp at Calgary’s Heritage Park.

The Calgary chapter initiated a junior telegrapher program at Heritage Park in the fall of 2023. The program now has ten young lightning slingers learning the trade through that program, with more to come I’m sure. My thanks to chapter secretary-treasurer and MTC Board member Marilyn Maguire, and Janice Povey, for their stewardship and mentoring of the next generation.

On a sad note we had to say goodbye to two members last year with the passing of Bill Atkinson in February and Nick Bobrownik in August. We also noted the passing of Edmonton chapter member Jim Crone in May who assisted Calgary chapter members at Heritage Park’s Railway Days in 2023. May they rest in peace.

The Calgary chapter will be holding our annual general meeting in late March. While the date has not yet been determined, I expect it will be held once again at the Nichols public library.

Chapter members will again be attending Supertrain, Calgary’s annual and Canada’s largest model railway show. The show will go on Saturday April 5 and Sunday April 6, in the Olympic oval at the University of Calgary. Our booth will feature information on the art and science that is Morse and we will host a working, multi-station landline Morse network as we did last year. It’s our expectation that we will connect it to the Alberta MTC line as well. Please visit: https://www.supertrain.ca/ for more information on the show.

And speaking of the Alberta MTC Line, as of the end of 2024 we had 5 active stations on the line. A sixth site, in BC, will be connected later this month. Kevin Jepson, the project’s Wire Chief and network administrator, tells me that he has more than two dozen museums wanting to join or wanting more info. The concept of connecting museums with landline Morse telegraph equipment to a working network is proving to be popular. My thanks to Kevin, and Tim Taylor, for moving the project along so well. If you would like more information on the line project please visit: https://alberta-mtc.blogspot.com/.

Lastly I want to mention that members of the Calgary chapter, and members of the Heritage Park Morse Telegraph Club, will again be demonstrating landline Morse at Heritage Park on Tuesdays and Saturdays from May to September. For more information on the park please visit: https://heritagepark.ca/.

That’s all I have for now. Until next time stay well.

73

Ken Ashmead, President
Morse Telegraph Club, Calgary “CG" Chapter