THIS WEBPAGE IS STILL UNDER RECONSTRUCTION
I finally was able to dig up this article which I had previously published on a list.
I need to re-read and re-proof it
Please let me say first of all the following is in no way
meant to be a documentary.
It is lengthy, follow along,
a lot of things happened.
It centers around a major event and I am
offering a few vignettes and insights from an operational viewpoint as it
happened. Only very recently did I realize that I had made time sheets at the
time to keep track of my dispatching shifts and with tiny notes attached it gave
me a some pretty good information and a time line.
On
Dec 5th
1975 I was working as a mobile operator with the Speno Train in the
Agassiz area, when there was a major slide reported near Harrison Mills, just
West of Agassiz. I was immediately sent there to copy train orders and other
required information for the work train. It was a major slide, it had been
raining for days, Hwy #7 (the alternate Trans-Canada) was flooded. The section
crews and gangs from Coquitlam ran out of food, and the trainmaster on site,
whose name escapes me, sent me in his high wheeled 4X4 to Mission to get food
which had been ordered over the dispatcher’s phone. With special permission I
was allowed past the roadblocks on the highway. Meanwhile ballast was dumped,
men worked feverishly, and the first train to try and make it over the track was
No2 in late evening. “Whisky Bill” now also on site, advised all along the track
to watch the train carefully over the affected section doing about 1mph. The
track sank precipitously under the train but just made it over the very soft
roadbed. Reference my earlier story about “Whisky Bill”.
I was then
called into the Vancouver office for extra dispatching shifts. What happenend on
the CN
Dec 7th is not in my memory banks, but we started detouring CN trains.
Vague in my memory is a severe slide on the CN side near Yale. If Dave Manzer is
on this list, he may be able to look up on a dispatcher’s sheet what happened.
What I know from my part is that the Vancouver office changed from that day
onward never to returen to original operations. Until this time there was one
dispatcher set for the Thompson, Princeton, Cascade and Mission Subs except for
first trick when there were two dispatchers. The Vancouver area from Pitt River
West was operated by an old USS CTC panel by the yard operator at Coquitlam.
By my sheets, we from that time on had two dispatchers covering all shifts,
BUT we were short of dispatchers. One import I remember is CGI (Chuck Ingram)
who came from 12th St Tower in Calgary. I trained him on the Cascade Sub and I
remember what a fast study he was. Others came as well, though I cannot remember
who.
Enough preamble, let’s get to the actual story.
I t was
Boxing Day 1975, it had rained for days and it was very windy. I lived in the
Flats in Surrey at the time and was nearly flooded out. Scott Road, then a two
lane road was partially under water. There was news on the radio that the
Fraser River Railway Bridge in New Westminster had been rammed by a barge and
was knocked off its tiers. You can follow a newspaper article, history and
pictures at the following URLs:
https://walkaloneway.wordpress.com/2012/01/17/swiftsure-prince-wind-at-the-helm/
https://historicbridges.org/bridges/browser/?bridgebrowser=britishcolumbia/newwestminsterrailwaybridge/
https://www.google.ca/search?source=univ&tbm=isch&q=fraser+river+bridger+collision+1975&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwillJbBx8PpAhWNHjQIHSV0DMcQsAR6BAgJEAE&biw=963&bih=974
I had just recently been promoted to Relief Dispatcher, but I was on my way
to work as Operator in Vancouver that afternoon. Things fell apart quickly. CN
Management contacted CPR management regarding detours. This was followed shortly
by Burlington Northern RR and BC Hydro Railway all wanting detours. Mayhem
started.
They tried to back to first 2 or 3 CN trains across the bridge
at Mission, but it was soon realized that this was just not going to work. From
that point on CN ran all their trains into Thornton Yard, where engines and
caboose were reversed and came back out (running forward of course across the
bridge). Also for the first few weeks, the movement required 3 separate CP
pilots, one each for the Mission, Cascade and Westminster Subs. This was also
quite unworkable, and after some "discussions" with the unions involved, one
pilot would to handle the entire detour move for each train.
The Fraser
River Bridge was used by three railways, the Canadian National, Burlington
Northern and BC Hydro Railway. It was, and is, a very important rail-link in the
Lower Mainland, British Columbia and even nationally. CN uses it as a link to
downtown Vancouver as well as North Vancouver across the Burrard Inlet where a
lot of their unit trains are destined. (Grain, Coal, Sulphur, Potash)
CP's Cascade Sub was double track, directional ABS Rule 105 Territory between
Ruby Creek MP 51.7 and Pitt River MP 108.4 with a short CTC break at Mission
City MP 87.3 where there was CTC for the crossover to the Mission Sub and a
power switch at Riverside on the South end of the bridge for either the Mission
Sub to Huntingdon or to the CN for Coal trains to Roberts Bank. The railway
bridge was a swing bridge (this bridge itself was also knocked off its moorings
in 1999)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Bridge
At that time
there was always a bridge tender on call fior the Mission Bridge. Fraser River
boat and barge traffic had priority which would soon change as I will explain.
The railway bridge also served as a road bridge, this before the new Highway
four lane bridge was built. It served as a single lane, traffic light
controlled, but with trains taking priority. It was quite a job getting to work
at Mission as operator as I lived in Surrey at the time before becoming a
dispatcher.
Following were certain events that sort of stick in my mind.
Both the Mission and Westminster Sub were only good for 4 axle locomotives
and were both fairly lightly used. Well, the Westminster Sub being built on
mostly muskeg sank between 2’ and 3’ within a few weeks. CN sent in a huge
workforce and equipment to upgrade the roadbed. CP didn't mind as to this day it
is now used by heavy 6 axle units
The Mission bridge got certain
allocated times at which it would be opened for river traffic, as sometimes
before this even a small boat would cause all railway (and road) traffic to come
to halt for considerable periods of time.
After a couple of weeks of
detour operations CP sent the Sperry Car to test the Westward Track between
Mission and Pitt River and they found over 130 sperry rails. The whole distance
was placed under a 10mph slow order, causing all trains to take three hours
minimum from Mission City to Coquitlam. Remember this was ABS territory, running
ACOT (Against Current of Traffic) could only be accomplished via train order and
there were few crossovers, making both operations and repairs to the rails very
complicated.
Then there was the case of the BN. CP would only allow BN
one train in each direction per day. So on the very first train BN sent (I
worked the midnight shift) they came up with seven 4 axle engines (remember BN
had just been formed and this was a conglomeration of GN, SP&S, NP and other
others and pulling 197 cars cars (remember it’s 1975). This caused extreme
delays and no small degree of consternation as it took about two hours to get
just through Mission causing all other traffic to be delayed even more. They
(BN) were not allowed to do that again.
Then there was the case of the CN
Hotshot. CN 201 (I think) was about third in line at Pitt River waiting for
trains ahead and opposing traffic to get to the Westminster Sub and interchange
back to CN tracks. Fraser Yard south of Coquitlam at that time only had 2
tracks, all hand bombed switches and bad track. Anyway, said CN crew got off
their train and walked away. Coquitlam Yardmaster sent out a yard goat and
pulled the hotshot in Coquitlam Yard were it then
sat
for about three days. It is my understanding the crew heard from CN management.
Our dispatchers train sheets were too small to hold all the trains and
information we had to write down, so every day we took a second sheet, cut off
the appropriate sections off and added them as additions to the regular trains
sheet. They were BIG, 5’ wide.
BC Hydro Railway only had SW900 switch
engines and SD38s which because they were 6 axle could not be used as previously
noted. But they had just received a brand new batch of then a new model, EMD
MP15s. These were sent out and did not even have their paint job completed yet,
but at that time they were quite unique and were designed as roadswitchers to
take the place of GP-7s and 9s.
As previously mentioned the Dispatchers
sets were split into two sets permanently from that time on. The Thompson
dispatcher at that time handled the Thompson and Princeton Subs. The Cascade
dispatcher handled the Cascade and Mission Subs. Vancouver Island (the E&N) had
not come over from Victoria yet.
Also Matt F, I know you are on this group. I know you took pictures of some
happenings at that time (I bought a picture from you with the brand new BCH
Engines in front of the old Coquitlam Station, so I know) would you perhaps mind
sharing a some of them.
On a personal note, my grandmother who had raised
me passed away in this time periood in Thunder Bay making things a bit more
difficult for me.
The last detour happened on
April
21st 1976, though some records show otherwise, but I documented this on
my timesheet.
I am including a couple of maps I made. Took me days with
“Windows Paint” a very simple drawing program. I did them strictly from memory
but believe they are quite accurate (proofed by officials of CP and others) and serve the purpose of understanding the
rail system(s) in the area at the time. Feel free to use them and/or forward
them but I would appreciate being giving credit for them
Operational map for all railways on the Lower Mainland at this time. 1976.
And a higher detail map of the Mission Area
Hope you all
enjoyed this.
Helmut W HW – “Hot Water” “Hard Work” “Horsewhip” and
others best not mentioned on a family channel
Retrired CP Dispatcher (RTC
???)
And now trucking on !!!!!!!!!