Brierly Brook Siding - Antigonish Co. Nova Scotia - 1978.I am including this picture to set the mood for the piece I am about to talk about. Dad took these pictures the Summer of 1978. It would have been in July or August as I was fishing the day Dad took these pictures. Thia picture was taken around the time Train "18" passed through at 1704 hrs.
Mum, Dad and I were in the Brierly Brook this day. Mum and Dad would be picking the wild strawberries and I would have gone fishing. I wasn't with Dad when these pictures were taken but I do remember the Engineer blowing the Air Horn for the Railway Crossings along the line.
On this day, the temperature were not that hot, but the humidity was making it sticky. There was a storm brewing in the wind and I remember later on that evening we got a wicked Thunder & Lightning storm.
Dad would have taken this picture with Train "18" just out of site around the curve. The Engineer giving the Grade Crossing warning on the whistle at Joe Stephens.
The farm in the distance was Danny MacIsaac's farm. Mum used to come to this spot when she was a little girl growing up. The Brierly Brook School was only about a mile from here, and on break, Mum and her friends would come down here. At this time (1930's) the Canadian National had a spur line here as well and Work Trains would be parked here. Mum and her friends would find their way to the Kitchen Car for the workers and the Cook would give Mum and her friends a really big cookie he just baked.
Train 18 - Sydney Bound - Brierly Brook Siding - Antigonish Co. Nova Scotia - 1978.As Dad would be taking this picture of Train "18" the Locomotive Engineer would be blowing the "14-L" Grade Crossing for the the crossing just behind Dad.
The "14-L" was the whistle that everyone is familiar with. The Engineer would be blowing (2) Long, (1) Short, and (1) Long blast from the horn. Most Engineers has the whistle warning timed so the last (1) Long tone would be sounded as the Train crossed the highway.
These were the only pictures Dad took of Train "18" as this train passed through Antigonish at 1714 Hrs. Dad kept things to a schedule himself and at this time he would be home eating Supper.
In this picture the entire train is visible. The (2) Locomotives, Steam Generating Car for heating & air conditioning the train, the Dayniter, Snack/Lounge Car, Montreal Day Coach and final (2) heavyweight coaches for local passengers.
Train 18 - Sydney Bound - Brierly Brook Siding - Antigonish Co. Nova Scotia - 1978.By the time this picture was taken Train "18" & "19" was down to one Baggage Car. When these trains were first created after Train "18" & "19" - "The Cabot" was cancelled, they carried (2) Baggage Cars. (1) for Express only and the (2nd) for Passenger's Baggage.
Following the Baggage Car are the (3) Montreal cars off of Train "14" - "The Ocean". Just behind the Baggage Car would be the Dayniter, then the Snack/Lounge Car then the Day Coach. The last (2) cars would be the Heavyweight Coaches that only ran between Truro and Sydney. These last (2) coaches would be used for Local Passengers between these points. As well as Sleeping Car passengers off of Train "14" - "The Ocean".
Sleeping Car passengers from Montreal had to vacate the Sleeping Cars in Truro if traveling East of Truro onwards to Sydney. By this time the Sleeping Cars that were part of Train "18" & "Train 19" were removed. At this time Sleeping Car accommodation was available between Halifax and Montreal on Train "14" & "15" - "The Ocean" & Train "11" & "12" - "The Scotian". In the early 1970's Train "18" & "19" had Sleeping Cars that traveled between Sydney & Montreal.
By this time it was costing Canadian National more to operate the Sleeping Cars than what it generated in revenue. About the only time Sleeping Cars would be used between Sydney & Montreal were when special groups would charter the Sleeping Cars. Every Year one group would Charter (3) Sleeping Cars for a Religious Pilgrimage to St. Anne de Beaupré, just 30 miles east of Quebec City.
Train 18 - Sydney Bound - Brierly Brook Siding - Antigonish Co. Nova Scotia - 1978.This picture shows the transition from Canadian National to VIA Rail of Passenger Services. By this time VIA Rail was a Crown Corporation on it's own. The different color schemes used can be seen in these pictures. Canadian National's second color scheme it applied to it's Passenger Fleet in 1961 was the light grey/black. The VIA Blue was the (3rd) color scheme Canadian National used. The (1st) color scheme Canadian National used when these cars were built in 1954/55 was the black/green/gold.
Most people think the Original Color Scheme of the black/green/gold was Canadian National's Finest, and I got to agree. It was the shortest lived of the color schemes Canadian National used, but it survived on some passenger cars into the 1970's. The Cars were repainted into the light grey/black when the cars were shopped and had to have major repairs or were being re-furbished inside.
Canadian National Railways - 1954 Color Scheme - E Series Sleeping Car.If anyone knows who is the photographer of this picture is please email me so the proper credit can be given.
Dad never took any pictures of the Passenger Trains Canadian National ran during the transition from Steam to Diesel. So I had to search the Intenet to find this picture that shows Canadian National's 1954/55 Color Scheme.
This picture shows a Sleeping Car built by "Pullman Standard" in 1954 for the Canadian National's "Super Continental" it was starting to compete with the new Canadian Pacific "The Canadian".
There were 54 of these E Series Sleeping Cars built for Canadian National. They ran anywhere on Canadian National Sleeping Cars ran. They were mostly used on the "Super Continental" but found themselves running on other overnight trains such as "The Ocean Limited" and "The Scotian" between Halifax and Montreal. Some may have even made it to Sydney.
Canadian National Railways Schedule - Sydney - Truro - Halifax - 26 October, 1975 - 24 April, 1976.
Canadian National Railways Schedule - Halifax - Sydney - Montreal - 26 October, 1975 - 24 April, 1976.Till the next time.
All Aboard
"The Old Fart"
5 Whistle{s}:
The new beta version has a few problems......they will work them out..
Anyway, I love trains, have ever since I was a kid. I grew up near the tracks, well the other side of the track so to speak. We would walk down the trestle to our favorite swimming hole, all of us kids. We put pennies for the trains to smash. We were devislishly dangerous, but kids were in those days.
I have always wanted to be near the tracks so that I can hear the trains in the night. I fear someday there won't be any trains left, well any passenger trains. I was born a little to late for train travel. They used to have a passenger train in every town.
This story was very interesting. Thank you.
Trains do reflect a romance of times past. I remember as a kid counting cars on the train as we waited for it to pass. I also remember drifting to sleep at night to the sound of the whistle as the train went through town.
I like the new layout -- though I miss the train you used to have at the top.
Finally, I am here to visit the trains. I love the whistle stop photo. This reminded me of sweet memories from childhood. The fascination with trains. My uncle had a train round the Christmas tree each year and it was a special thrill. The other photos took me back to Maine where my brother and I visited a train/trolley museum. Thanks for the fond rekindling of those memories, they were happy times.
Re your picture showing the Brierly Brook siding:
I was born in 1943 in Halifax, lived in the Halifax area all my life, but usually visited my grand parents for a week or so each summer at the community known as Brierly Brook, up to about 1961. Grandpas' property faced on the No.4 highway, and the back of his property was along the Brook and the big gypsum cliffs, or mabe the Brook actually flowed through his property a bit. The last antival, that is, his last bit of hayland was between the Brook and the tracks, I think, somewhere on the left of the tracks in your picture.
In the 1950s, on the right hand side of the track, as your picture appears, about where the Brierly Brook sign is, there was a small station house mostly used by railway crews, which a person could use for shelter while waiting for the train. When you saw the train approaching, you would flag it down, it would stop or slow down, you'd jump on, the conductor would come around, collect your fare, and you'd be on your way. I recall two rooms in this station; one small one with a place to sit and a small wood stove one could build a fire in to use to keep warm, with one or more windows, and another room with separate door facing the tracks used as a storage shed by train crews for supplies like kerosene which was used to light the signal lights by the tracks, to tell approaching engineers whether the siding switches were open or closed, stuff like that. I don't know how they do it now, but after the use of kerosene lamps for the signals, I think they went to battery operated electric light bulbs.
Myself and my cousins and their friends from the area sometimes would take a tin can filled with kerosene from the station, especially at night, soak bulrushes in the kerosene, light them, and use them for torches heading back along the Post Road to the No. 4 Highway and to Grandpas'. We'd light them up near the wood bridge over Brierly Brook, and by the time we were half way up the hill beyond, the torches would burn out, and if the night was cloudy, we were left in pitch dark and you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. Then someone would silently toss a rock into the woods and say, Shhhhh, I think I heard a bear, and the girls would squeal a bit, and we'd all be scared out of our wits, or so we used to like to think. It's fun to get really scared once in awhile. Then we'd go along the road, in danger of actually walking over the road shoulder and falling over the steep bank and into the woods below if we wern't real careful. We'd feel our way along with our feet, following the ruts in the road until we got out of the trees and then we'd have some light from the sky so we could follow the road alright. One time, Gerard Kelly and I actually walked up on a deer in the back of the pasture next to Grandpas'. It was quite dark, and the deer took off, and all I saw was a glimpse of antlers against the bit of light in the sky. We were startled for a moment, but were okay when we realized what it was. The deer must have been no more than five feet away from my face when it bolted, and it must have thought Gerard and I were other deer, otherwise, how could we have walked up so close before it ran?
The swimming hole you mention was possibly (I'm surmising) where the beavers would build a dam in the portion of the brook to the left of the tracks and near where the tracks disappear to the left in your picture. The dam would create a fine pool which often had a school of migrating sea trout or some nice occasional trout in it, as well as beavers to watch sometimes as they went about their activities. One time I was fishing back there by myself and was looking for a place to cast, when I was awesomely startled by what I thought was a hudge fish, three feet long, stirring up mud as it went along because the water wasn't hardly deep enough to cover it. It turned out to be a submerged beaver quietly pushing himself along with his hind feet along the bottom.
The dam would flood the area on the left and on the right of the tracks, for there was a small railroad bridge over a sort of creek connecting the Brook to a sort of pond on the right side of the tracks as shown in your picture. Usually someone would eventually tear out the beaver dam to prevent flooding of small portions of hay field.The beavers would eventually rebuild the dam. Man against nature, nature against man, and so-on. My cousins took me swimming there. In the deepest spots, the water was up to my chin, and it was much colder than a lake (because the Brook came down from the hills) but not nearly as cold as the North West Arm in Halifax in mid June, where I was used to swimming in the 1950s. One of my cousins, Emmy McKenna, said he couldn't understand how I could stay in the water so long. I told him about the Arm, and about Sambro, where the water even colder than the Arm, and that I was sort of pre-conditioned to cold water.
There was a small raft in this beaver pond in Brierly Brook. In those days there were steam engines, before deisel engines came into use. We'd hear a train coming a long way off. They made a lot more noise. We'd get ready. Three of us huddled on this little raft. We'd paddle and pull ourselves under the little railway bridge, which spanned about ten or twelve feet of water, looking up at the tracks only a couple of feet or a foot above our heads. The roar of the train approaching, and the steam whistle blasting away, echoed through the hills and up the valley, along with the rapid chug-chug-chug of the steam engine. Closer it came. All of a sudden, it was there, thundering over our heads. The rails and ties were bouncing up and down, the ground was vibrating, the air was vibrating, the massive clanging and banging and squeaking and hiss of escaping steam closed out the rest of the world as this massive mechanical monster rushed by over our heads.We had to shout loudly to speak to one another. After the engine and its' coal car came the mail car, passenger cars and boxcars and tank cars and flat cars and everything else, right down to the caboose. After a minute or two of this great thundering commotion, all of a sudden, silence. Or what seemed like silence. Then as our ears adjusted, we could hear the train rattling off, on its' way, moving off into the distance. Soon it was far away. We'd move ourselves on the raft, out from under this small railway bridge, hooting and exclaiming to one another, as if we'd just got off a roller coaster ride at the Canadian National Exhibition.
Now, it's debatable as to which are the more sensible, our average couch potato, computer game lovin', Big Mac devouring kids or those kids who would partake in sitting nearly naked on a tippy, overcrowded raft in five or six feet of cold water and looking up the underside of a fast moving freight train so close above our heads that we could reach out and touch it except that through experience in living dangerously somehow nearly every day, we knew better than to even think about trying to touch it. It was a "given" that we wouldn't get away with that. We knew automatically from our experiences every day. We recognized the dangers we faced and automatically calculated what we could do and what we could not do. And we were active, without hardly noticing that we were. High cholesterol and flabby heart muscles can go unnoticed too, until we've had a bad experience, and they just sort of creep up on us unseen and unnoticed until we're ready for a trip to the cardiac unit.
Wayne
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