Doug, I have to disagree with your comments about the Dominion and Canadian. I
will address Vic's comment about the speed of trains 21-22 at the same time,
since the topics were closely connected in CP's planning process.
I didn't say, nor did I mean to imply, that the fast diesel pool was created to
dieselize the Canadian after it had started running. It was all done in
advance. The Dominion existed under that name long before, and was two trains
until The Canadian started. The diesel pool was only planned to dieselize the
section of the Dominion which was intended to continue, but probably in
practice both were already dieselized, using the units intended for The
Canadian.
The Dominion was established in 1929. It was a renaming (and I believe a
speeding up) of the Toronto Express/Vancouver Express between those cities. It
was never a non-named train and carried its name until discontinued in early
1966. In the early 1930s it began to include Montreal-Vancouver service
connecting at Sudbury. Portions of the route began to be operated as two
regular sections and by 1942 the Dominion was operated as two complete trains
on similar schedules, one each serving Montreal and Toronto. A third schedule
accompanied them east of Winnipeg, normally carrying mail and express but
sometimes overflow passenger cars. The Dominion's through Montreal and Toronto
sections were combined onto a single schedule west of Sudbury on April 24,
1955, the change of timetable day when The Canadian was introduced. Additional
sections were operated when demand was high. The Dominion's mail & express
section was extended to Vancouver and also carried overflow passengers when
required.
Murray Dean and David Hanna's "Canadian Pacific Diesel Locomotives" was written
with access to the original files. They noted that the motive power study for
the Dominion examined Trains 7 & 8, the Montreal-Vancouver section. The study
didn't cover Trains 3 & 4, the Toronto-Vancouver section, pending the proposed
establishment of The Canadian. The Canadian would divert much traffic from the
Dominion and make two full-service sections of the Dominion unnecessary. (It
did not eliminate the need for a mostly mail & express section, trains 5 & 6.)
So the motive power study also covered the needs of The Canadian
Montreal-Vancouver, and those of the Toronto-Sudbury sections of both Canadian
and Dominion, which were to share locomotives. (Trains 5 & 6 were to be
dieselized later.)
A pool of 89 mph F-units was to be established which would cover both the
Canadian and Dominion, as well as some other services. The first order covered
units for the Dominion and trains 21-22, while the second was for The Canadian,
but individual engines were not intended to be assigned to any particular
train. Each group was funded through an appropriation tied to a particular
service. The first group were nomilly for The Canadian and were FP9s and F9Bs,
plus five FP7s with an unsatisfactory experimantal 77 mph gearing re-equipped
for 89 mph. These were delivered in 1954. The second group resulted from an
apparent desire by CP to stop buying "covered wagon" units and to move some of
those already in freight service into passenger service. Thus 21 GP9s were
ordered with gearing for 89 mph, and when they were received their trucks were
exchanged for those under FP7s and F7Bs already in freight and passenger
service out of Calgary. This occurred prior to the change of time on April 24,
1955, so there were enough diesels equipped for 89 mph to protect the Dominion
and Canadian as they were scheduled beginning on that date. In practice the
Dominion (until then with two sections) was mostly if not entirely dieselized.
It had been dieselized west of Calgary for several years. Of course, the power
that is assigned is not necessarily what is actually used, but when I say a
train was dieselized I refer to what is assigned and not what has to be used in
an emergency.
The fact that the 89 mph pool explicitly included trains 21 and 22 suggests
that CP believed these trains needed the ability to operate faster than a dual
service locomotive. The EMD/GM traction motor had maximum speed of 65 mph if it
were to be produce full power in freight service. The GE traction motor used by
Alco/MLW and FM/CLC had a maximum of 75 mph for this purpose. CP clearly felt
it needed something better. While CP's end-to-end passenger speeds were not
generally high, loading delays, speed restrictions and other problems required
the ability to make up time which presumably a dual service diesel weren't
capable of. Steam locomotives, for all their problems and inefficiencies,
didn't suffer this particular problem and in fact produced their greatest power
at higher speeds than diesels. CP's transcontinental and intercity passenger
steam locomotives had 75-inch drivers and could exceed the speed of any diesel
CP owned. 21 and 22 had more than eight hour schedules, but a number of stops
and some difficult territory between Perth and Belleville. As an example I
picked at random, in 1956 train 21 was scheduled from St Annes to Chesterville
in 69 minutes for 66.3 miles. That's not feasible with a 65 mph maximum speed
given the practical constraints of railroading. I often rode CN and VIA's
Cavalier which had about an eight hour schedule, with a number of stops, and it
generally operated about the same speeds as the non-stop day trains between
stations.
CP did in fact have an un-named transcontinental train, but it was not the
predecessor of the Dominion. The Imperial Limited was established in 1898 as a
faster and fancier running mate of the original transcontinental train, the
Pacific Express/Atlantic Express. At first the Imperial was only seasonal but
after a few years it became a daily Montreal-Vancouver train. (When the Toronto
Express/Vancouver Express was established in 1913, the Atlantic/Pacific was
discontinued.) Thereafter the Imperial and the Toronto/Vancouver served their
separate eastern terminals, and operated on the main line west of Sudbury at
quite different times of day. This allowed a choice of train times, either one
morning and one evening train, or one day and one night train, depending on
location. Their schedules were shortened over time but the pattern remained. In
the early 1930s the Imperial's through business was transferred to the
Dominion, with a new Montreal-Sudbury section as mentioned above. The Imperial
lost its name and became known as trains 1 and 2. It became something of a
long-distance local, although it continued to carry sleeping cars and some food
service over all or parts of its route. When The Canadian was inaugurated in
1955 as trains 1 and 2, the old Imperial became trains 17 and 18. It was
cancelled in April 1956 but some segments continued to operate. This may have
been the un-named train you were thinking of.
There is far more detail to all this. I have only included what was needed to
address the points raised.
Don Thomas
----- Original Message -----
From: Doug Cummings <DougCummings@xxxxxxx>
Date: Tuesday, October 2, 2012 9:51 am
Subject: RE: [cpsig] Re: 21-22
To: cpsig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The Dominion and the Canadian were dieselized (officially) from
day one. I
believe they were introduced at the time change in the spring of
1955. The
Dominion had existed as a non-named train prior to that time.
Unofficiallythe Dominion, at least, was occasionally worked by
steam but as far as I
know the Canadian never was.
Doug
