My friend Joe Smuin, quoting a CPR official who recalled the first
[open] auto racks that "in the first winter arrived with top deck
autos with smashed windshields, cars full of ice. That did it."
Joe then summarizes:
"I haven't had time to research this, but I think the autoracks began
showing up in the early 1960s. I had been given to understand during
my time in Kamloops that the icicle-breaking cars had nothing to do
with the Canadian....
*snip*
"I hope this will put an end to the notion that the box car equipped
icicle breakers had anything to do with the Budd dome cars in service
on the Canadian. They didn't!"
Right-on, Joe. I concurr and offer the following by searching my
photo database and find the first instances of:
1. Open tri-level auto racks:
CN 700001 in Vancouver on 1962/12/22, and
CP 550013 in Vancouver on 1962/12/26
2. Icicle-breaking boxcars:
CP 240559 in Vancouver on 1963/02/16, and
CP 245139 in Coquitlam and Vancouver on 1963/05/05
These slides are not where I am right now, so I cannot check for car
build/rebuild dates. Perhaps someone can check an equipment roster
for build dates. CP's CS39 for 1977 shows 550000-550384 as "Flat,
Stl., Superstructure, 3 Decks. (Auto)" but doesn't provide build
dates. But, I recall the auto-rack cars being very new at the time I
photo'd them (in December 1962).
Based on this, it seems to me that it may have been the winter of
1962-63 that prompted the modification and use of those
icicle-breaking boxcars.
Of course, that begs the next question -- where were they used? I
know they were used between Calgary and Vancouver. Did they also
operate across the prairies? North Shore of Lake Superior? or
all-across Canada?
Roger Burrows
North Vancouver
