A former member of our Model RR club worked the garden tracks as a summer job
while going to school.
His job was ensuring CPR cars were equipped with freshly laundered linens prior
to pick-up by whatever train was
lifting them from Banff. If he and his buddies ran low due to slacking off and
not doing the laundry, they "raided"
the US Pullman cars on the garden Tracks when the porters were sightseeing
downtown. Apparently, this led to Pullman
linens going as far east as Montreal before anyone in authority noticed the
problem.
Some cars on the Mountaineer ran all the way to Vancouver so empty space could
have been sold to passengers
from the west coast I suppose.
Robin Lowrie
Stony Plain, Alberta
----- Original Message -----
From: soolinehistory
To: cpsig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2010 7:09 AM
Subject: [cpsig] [PCL] Re: "The Mountaineer" photo, more questions
The list of Pullman cars assigned to the CP and Soo I posted last night got
me to thinking (always dangerous). The first three cars of the train in the
photo, the "composite" baggage-buffet and the two sixteen section cars, don't
appear on that list, which leads me to believe that this is a tour group that
contracted directly with Pullman, rather than with the railroads, for the cars.
This little ensemble would be perfect for about five dozen people, with self
contained baggage space and food service. In fact, it could even serve as
accommodations while the group was staying in Banff, so that leads to the
question; was such a thing possible to arrange? Were there occupied cars on the
"garden tracks" at Banff on a regular basis?
I also note that the photo is eastbound, still west of Banff, which leads to
another question; How much of this tour traffic came up from California and the
western US? We often think of the Mountaineer as a conduit for tourists from
the eastern and midwestern US, but the train also had good connections with the
US roads at Vancouver, and there must have been some traffic from the west
coast.
Dennis
