Andrew--
Thank you. I went thorough a similar experience in civil court years ago,
where the respondent's lawyer asked me if something (now lost to the mists of
time) was possible. I replied, "Yes".
The plaintiff's lawyer asked me if the reverse was possible. I answered that
it was. In the end, that whole courtroom exercise accomplished nothing other
than to enrich the two lawyers' fees.
I have read Dean and Hanna's book a few times. And it's obvious that they had
access to a great quantity of official CPR records. Do "official" records
concur? Not always. Choose your railway source, and you'll find conflicts
occasionally.
Were Dean and Hanna wrong about the lights' purpose on the roof of The
Canadian's loco's? Very possibly. But considering the apparent accuracy of
other info presented in their book, the balance of probabilities leads me to
allow that the authors may have been right in the photo caption.
Yet I personally think the "PR" theory more likely. To me, it makes the most
sense. The B&O (?) had lights mounted on certain of its dome cars' rooves to
illuminate trackside features. So why not the CPR?
To detect icicles in tunnels? Sure, the lights could help engine crews see
them. Very basic physics also tells me that at a practical operating speed for
a passenger train crossing most of Canada in three days and change, an
emergency application would be very unlikely to stop the train before a big
icicle crashed through the dome of the Skyline--after the train crew saw said
icicle illuminated in a Gyralite with beam directed upward at the angle shown
in the National Archives photo. ]
But railway officials have come up with some interesting ideas over the years,
as the published works of former CPR roundhouse foreman F.H. Howard attest to.
The use of a roof-mounted Gyralite to detect icicles in advance of a train
would likely have been a great idea to somebody of rank in the CPR's upper
management. And a source of amusement to train crews if this was the
"official" reason given for their use.
PR for The Canadian--that's my best guess...
Steve Lucas.
--- In cpsig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Andrew Jeanes <yahoo@...> wrote:
On 27-Nov-10, at 11:36 PM, Steve Lucas wrote:
Let's flip that argument around: are you suggesting that Dean and
Facts?? So far we've engaged in a LOT of conjecture. Nobody on this
list has yet produced ANYTHING from the CPR or other contemporary
sources stating the purpose of these roof-mounted lights. Though I'd
personally side with the PR angle. And it would work fine until The
Canadian was led by an RS10, RS18, GP9, E8, or even a steam-jenny
fitted Train Master. But this "never" happened, did it? ;)
Yet was the CPR not fitting RDC's with Gyralites for improved public
crossing visual conspicuity at about the time that The Canadian was
introdiced to the travelling public? Which raises the possibility
that the CPR also wanted to make The Canadian more visible to
motorists?
And as suggested, if Dean and Hanna are wrong in their book's photo
caption regarding these lights' purpose, what else is also
inaccurate in that book? To assert that Dean and Hanna printed an
inaccurate caption in their book on CP's diesel locos is also to
raise the spectre of other incaccuracies contained in it. Which
opens a can of worms...
So is Dean and Hanna's book not to be relied on?
Hanna's book is %100 unimpeachably error-free? Does the possibility of
even one error in the book make the rest of the content worthless.
If I could point you to a provable error in one volume of the
Encyclopedia Britannica (which I can), would you disregard the entire
multi-volume set as too unreliable to be of any value? Books have
mistakes. Newspaper articles have mistakes. Internal corporate
documents have mistakes. The only way to know that a fact is true
beyond doubt is to witness it with your own eyes (even then, sometimes
we don't see what we think we are seeing) or to have it corroborated
by multiple independent primary sources (and not multiple secondary
sources all based on a single primary source). Absent reliable primary
sources, all you can do is apply logic to come up with a reasonable
inference about what is true.
CPR fitted removable, front-facing Gyralites on the front door of its
RDCs. The Gyralite was removable so it could be moved to the front end
of the train when it turned. It is well-documented that RDCs were
considered much more quiet than the locomotive-hauled trains they
replaced, and in grade-crossing accidents involving RDCs, the lack of
noise has been cited in multiple instances as a reason the car or
truck driver failed to notice the train.
Whether removable or not, the lights on the roof of the passenger-
geared FP7s and FP9s did not face forward on the horizontal; they
faced up at an angle. No other locomotives, including passenger
locomotives, including all CP's other passenger service cab units
(e.g. the E8As and FPA-2s) had these roof lights. When these lights
were installed on the roofs of the FP7s and FP9s, they were the only
power assigned to The Canadian. Some other CP passenger trains might
have an FP7 or FP9 assigned, or they might have any other available
passenger power. Even the Dominionnormally pulled by F-units in the
1950ssometimes had other power. Bruce Chapman has train register
books from the 1950s that show only F-units assigned to The Canadian,
day-in and day-out, from 1955 through 1960.
So if only The Canadian was guaranteed to have locomotives with lights
on the roof, and if no other CP passenger train was guaranteed to have
locomotives with these lights, doesn't logic suggest that their use is
connected to the uniqueness of The Canadian, rather than to any other
consideration?
If somebody can find the mechanical department memo that explains why
the passenger F-units were equipped with these lights, and it turns
out that it has nothing to do with their assignment to The Canadian
and only thatI will not only eat my own hat, I will eat yours.
Regards,
Andrew
