UCRS NEWSLETTER - 1967 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── August, 1967 - Number 259 Toronto, Ontario. 8:00 p.m. Published monthly by the Upper Canada Railway September 15th; (Friday) - Regular meeting, Society, Incorporated, Box 122, Terminal A, at which J. A. Nanders, will discuss Toronto, Ontario. a recent European trip, with emphasis Editor James A. Brown on rail facilities in Portugal. Authorized as Second Class Matter by September 30th; (Saturday) - STEAM/Diesel the Post Office Department, Ottawa, Ontario, excursion to Lindsay and Haliburton. and for payment of postage in cash. October 1st; (Sunday) - STEAM excursion to Fort Members are asked to give the Society Erie. Full details on both at least five weeks notice of address changes. excursions may be obtained from UCRS Please address NEWSLETTER at Box 122, Terminal A, Toronto. contributions to the Editor at 3 Bromley NOTICE re “Centennial Steam Tour”: Crescent, Bramalea, Ontario. No Termination of operating arrangements between responsibility is assumed for loss or Rail Tours, Incorporated, and the Maryland non-return of material. & Pennsylvania Railroad has necessitated the All other Society business, including cancellation of the bus tour of Pennsylvania membership inquiries, should be addressed to and New York, originally scheduled for October UCRS, Box 122, Terminal A, Toronto, Ontario. 6th to 9th. Cover Photo: The scene is one of congestion November 17th; (Friday) - Sort out your surplus at Front and Bathurst on June 22nd, 1931, as railroadiana now for the UCRS Auction, the FLEET route is inaugurated over the which will be presided over this year newly-rebuilt Bathurst Street bridge. Less by Mr. Omer Lavallee, of Montreal. than a month later, the route name would be READERS’ EXCHANGE changed to the familiar FORT. Step right up WANTED: Back issues of UCRS NEWSLETTERS prior now! Photo courtesy of TTC. 0259-001.jpg to January, 1964; also Bulletins. David J. Contributors to this Issue: John Bromley, Bill Williams III, Box 686, Ben Franklin Station, Hood, George Horner, Ed Jordan, Omer Lavallee, Washington, D.C., 20044, U.S.A. Norm Lowe, Bob McMann, Steve Munro, Jim CAN ANYONE HELP in locating a photo of the Sandilands, Ted Wickson. CNR station in London, Ontario during the Production: John Bromley. period when the Pere Marquette and L&PS Distribution: Bas Headford, Tony Kerr, George maintained a small depot across from the CN? Meek, Keith Milligan, Steve Munro, Terry A plank platform extended from CN tracks to Thompson, Ted Wickson. the L&PS. Contact Harry Stirling, 39 Maple * * * Street, St. Thomas, Ontario. Have you received a defective copy of WANTED: Railroad dining, lounge and the NEWSLETTER lately? We don’t like to admit sleeping car furnishings, equipment and it, but now and then a page is missed, or accessories, such as china, linen, printed on only one side. If you’ve had a silverware, playing cards, etc. Also problem like this, mail your copy to Box 122. postcards of station and train interiors. (not to the editor, please!) and we’ll gladly Richard B. Shull, c/o Shady Lane Playhouse, replace it. Marengo, Illinois, 60152, U.S.A. COMING EVENTS WILL TRADE copy of 40-page booklet on trolleys Regular meetings of the Society are of Hershey, Pennsylvania for ten trolley held on the third Friday of each month (except postcards of New York State. Also available July and August) at 587 Mt. Pleasant Road, is a booklet on the trolleys of Utica and UCRS # 259 - 1 Central New York. Booklets are available for U.S.A. sale at $1.25 each. Trolley postcards of Ohio RAILWAY NEWS AND COMMENT and Pennsylvania also wanted. W. R. Gordon, CN CLOSES MANY ONTARIO STATIONS 811 Garson Avenue, Rochester, N.Y., 14609, Canadian National’s Master Agencies immediate consideration of the applications at London and Stratford have enabled the by the BTC, a body which will disappear with railway to close a number of its local agencies the establishment of the Canadian in southwestern Ontario. On June 27th, BTC Transportation Commission. The Prairie approval was given for the closure, effective farmers insist that the new commission is the July 1st, of the stations at Dorchester, only authority entitled to rule on the Thorndale, Ilderton, Centralia, Hyde Park, problem, an opinion which apparently the BTC Kerwood, Mt. Brydges, Newbury and Bothwell. shares since it has decided that its own On August 4th, the depots at Lucan, Ailsa conclusion would be referred to the CTC for Craig, Parkhill, Ripley and Bright closed for a decision. business, while the stations at Tavistock and Thus the matter is really no cleared Shakespeare followed suit a week later. More than before. In theory, the principle of closures are imminent. freedom to compete has been accepted by the BRANCH LINE CUTS IN THE NEWS AGAIN government. Seven months have passed since The Prairie branch line issue and how Parliament passed Bill C-231; yet until the to deal with it has once again become a prime government proceeds with the formation of the topic for editorial writers, farmers and Canadian Transport Commission, it is mockery railwaymen from Saskatoon to Ottawa. to say that the railways are actually being One of the main principles of the allowed to compete. federal Transport Bill, passed into law ECONOMY WAVE SLOWS U.S. HIGH-SPEED earlier this year, was to give the railways EXPERIMENTS increased freedom to compete with other The U.S. Department of Transportation’ transport media; in one respect, this can be s budget of $18.6-million for the current interpreted as a relaxing of the obligation fiscal year, earmarked for the development to operate unprofitable branch lines. The of high-speed ground transportation systems, government has arranged with the railways that has been cut back to $10.3-million by a certain Prairie lines -- about 18,000 miles Congressional economy wave. of them – will be protected against The reduction will not affect the abandonment until January 1st, 1975. highly publicized project to run passenger Left “unprotected” were 1,845 miles trains between Washington and New York at of trackage which could be considered for speeds in excess of 100 m.p.h., starting immediate abandonment. At the moment, CN and October 29th. It will, however, delay CP are asking the Board of Transport indefinitely proposals to carry passengers Commissioners to proceed with 46 pending and their automobiles piggyback on rail cars, applications involving 1,512 miles of and plans for testing wheelless trains, “unprotected” lines – 843 miles on CN and 669 underground guideways, pneumatic tubes, on CP. The annual operating losses on these linear electric motors and so on. lines amount to more than $2,000 per mile; Meanwhile, in Philadelphia on July less than an average of three cars per day 19th, the Budd Company took the wraps off the are delivered to points on the 1,512 mils of first of forty high-speed self-propelled cars track; an average of 36 carloads per day which will be operated by the Pennsylvania originate from points along these lines, in Railroad in the New York - Washington service. three provinces. PRR has sunk $44-million into this project, The railways have been pressing for while the D.O.T. has supplied an additional UCRS # 259 - 2 $11.5-million. between Glace Bay and Louisburg, was withdrawn CUMBERLAND RAILWAY TO CLOSE LOUISBURG BRANCH on March 1st, 1963. The Board of Transport Commissioners CN’S MARITIME DISPATCHING CONSOLIDATED has OK’d the closing of the Cumberland Without a hitch, CN closed down three Railway’s easternmost trackage, a 13-mile dispatching offices on its Maritime Area on section from Broughton Junction to Louisburg, August 1st, transferring their functions to N.S., after May 1st, 1968. The railway said a single control centre at Moncton, N.B. that it had been losing money on the line for Dispatching previously had been handled from years and faced a capital outlay of $594,000 offices at New Glasgow, Halifax, Moncton and over the next five years to repair four bridges Charlottetown. Heart of the new control and the rock protection on a coastal section. centre is the CTC machine which controls In approving the application despite strong traffic between Moncton and Halifax. civic protest, the BTC noted that Louisburg About 60 trains a day will be handled is adequately served with regular bus and by the new dispatching office, over lines truck schedules. on Prince Edward Island, in Nova Scotia and Until 1962, the Cumberland was known southern New Brunswick. as the Sydney & Louisburg Railway, a name SIX KILLED IN TWO RAIL COLLISIONS familiar to enthusiasts as one of the last Six persons were killed in two separate strongholds of steam operation on a major rail mishaps during August, both involving scale in the east. Cumberland’s last passenger and freight trains. passenger service, a twice-weekly mixed On August 2nd, CN’s Train No. 3, the Photo: A jumble of boxcars virtually hides Toronto section of the westbound Super the passenger train in this view of the D&H Continental, collided head-on with an derailment at Saratoga Springs, N.Y. AP eastbound freight train at Dunrankin, 195 Photo. 0259-002.jpg miles west of Capreol. No explanation was WORTH NOTING. .... given for the mishap, in which all four * The New York Central expects that enginemen lost their lives. Five cars of the the long-delayed NYC-PRR merger w.ll be able passenger train and 26 cars of the 84-car to clear the remaining legal hurdles by early freight left the rails in the pre-dawn next year. Meanwhile, NYC plans to seek ICC collision. The locomotive consists included permission to drop a number of intercity units 6522, 6538 and 4118 on No.