CP's 1955 Assignment of Space book (effective with the April 24, 1955 change of
time) shows a Pullman 8-1-2 between until the end of May and after September
10. In the shoulder season it ran St Paul-Field and on the Mountaineer it ran
St Paul-Vancouver. This is curious because CP's five Pullman 8-1-2 cars were
removed from Pullman lease in early May of 1955. It is possible that the
decision was made to remove these cars from lease after the Assignment book was
printed. The line would have been shared by CP and Pullman because the Soo
8-1-2s weren't removed from Pullman lease until October. (The line had been
shared by CP and Pullman between 1929 and 1934 when CP contracted with Pullman
to operate its share.)
CP's Assignment of Space book dated April 29 1956 shows the Soo Line 8-1-2 cars
operating St Paul to Portal only. Terminating the runs at Portal allowed the
cars to return to St Paul on No. 14 the same day. Going on to Moose Jaw or
Swift Current would require a third car which Soo didn't own. This car ran year
round on Soo-Dominion and Mountaineer. Through first class passengers could
ride the CP cafe-parlor car between Portal and Moose Jaw, where they connected
with the Dominion. A CP 8-1-2 also ran St Paul - Banff in the "shoulder" season
and St Paul-Vancouver on the Mountaineer. These assignments may have been
become effective before April 29 1956, possibly in October 1955 when the Soo
cars were removed from lease. Up to 1956 CP issued update pages in the fall to
paste into the Assignment books but I don't have these for the fall of 1955.
The Pullman Project indicates that Explorer, Mountaineer, Rancher, Ranger and
Trapper were painted Soo Line Red until 1936, and standard Pullman colors after
that. CP presumably repainted them red after the leases were up but I don't
have any evidence of it.
I assume that the timing of CP's removal of its cars from Pullman lease in
early May 1955 is related to inauguration of The Canadian in April. The new
lightweight sleepers removed a lot of heavyweights from regular assignments and
made them available for extra summer traffic. Until 1955 CP had relied on
Pullman for extra cars on the Mountaineer route, and according to
correspondence I have seen, Pullman gave priority to railroads that contracted
with it for regular car service. About the same time as the lightweights were
delivered, Pullman's business had declined to the point that it always had a
surplus of cars so there was no need for CP to contract for year round service
on this route to guarantee extra cars in the summer. (This may have been the
reason CP contracted with Pullman for this line in the 1930s. CP had a large
pool of wooden sleepers, and those built from 1910 to 1913 had been rebuilt
with steel sheathing and underframes during the 1920s. But by the 1930s the
pre-1910 cars were likely considered too old to serve first class travelers, or
to be economic to rebuild even if the work could be afforded during the
Depression. Contracting for a single year-round car line was a cheap way to
guarantee access to the Pullman Pool during the summer. Canada had somewhat
more sleeper business on intercity trains in the east during the fall, winter
and spring, but not nearly enough to balance the huge demand for cars to the
west and east coasts in summer. Only Pullman with its big seasonal Florida
business could provide the extra capacity.) Pullmans nevertheless remained
common on the Mountaineer/Soo-Dominion in the summer right up to the end in the
1960s, particularly since by that time CP's heavyweights were not as attractive
to passengers as lightweights available from Pullman.
Up to the summer of 1954 the Mountaineer carried a Pullman observation. During
the second world war, while Soo's four River observation cars were being sold
to the Army as hospital cars, CP rebuilt its matching River cars to include
revenue space. Two became cafe parlor cars while the other thirteen received
four double bedrooms and one compartment in the head end lounge section, and
they were renamed in the "Cape" series. The rear observation rooms were
retained. Most of the Cape cars were then assigned to the Montreal-Vancouver
section of the Dominion, while the newest of the "Mount" observations were
assigned to the Dominion's Toronto-Vancouver section. When The Canadian was
introduced in 1955 the Dominion was combined into a single section (nominally,
as extra sections were common in summer) with new streamlined dome
observations. This freed the Cape cars to operate on the Mountaineer for the
first time in 1955.
With respect to diners, in some years Soo diners ran as far west as Swift
Current, with CP diners west of Medicine Hat. However in other years a diner is
shown running from Enderlin to Vancouver. I assume that both CP and Soo diners
would share the service but can't confirm that. So it would be important to
know what year and what part of the route is being modeled.
Don Thomas
----- Original Message -----
From: Dennis Storzek
To: cpsig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, March 30, 2009 12:19 PM
Subject: [cpsig] Re: "Mountaineer" consist musings
--- In cpsig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "jonnyo55" <jonnyo55@...> wrote:
...so I bought two Pullmans, a diner, and a solarium, painted and lettered
for Soo Line. To this mix, I add the two Kettle Valley head end cars (I think
the other three, passenger-carrying cars are too early for my purposes) and all
I need are a pair of coaches, and, voila! i have a nice "Mountaineer". Any
comments on this assemblage?
If the Walthers cars are 8-1-2 cars, they can be named CENTBURNE or CENTSALVA
and will be pretty close to correct. These cars were repainted "Soo Line Red"
(Pullman's name for the color) in January of 1951 and June of 1954
respectively. Prior to that they were in Pullman's standard paint scheme, most
likely green with Pullman on the letterboard. Both cars were withdrawn from
lease to Pullman in October of 1955, and renumbered 1257 and 1258. The cars
continued in service on the Soo-Dominion, but I don't think they went beyond
Portal (or perhaps Swift Current) after they became Soo operated, but perhaps
Don Thomas has better information.
The CP also had five similar cars on lease for Pullman operation, EXPLORER,
MOUNTAINEER, RANCHER, TRAPPER, and CENTALPINA. These cars were originally
Pullman owned; ownership passed to the CP in 1948 with the break-up of the
Pullman car fleet, and were leased back to Pullman for operation. I hesitate to
bring this up again, but information in the Pullman Co. records indicates that
these cars were never repainted for CP, and instead ran in Pullman Co. livery,
at least one car receiving Pullman's post war two tone gray paint. The
information that I have is that these cars were painted Maroon and lettered for
CP only after the operating agreement was terminated and the cars pulled off
lease in 1956, but at that time they were no longer used on the Mountaineer.
However, This assertion has been challenged on this list, and since I don't
claim to be an expert on the CPR, I'm waiting for someone to come up with a
dated photo to refute the information contained in the Pullman records.
I will say that one of the reasons that CP contracted with Pullman to operate
the sleepers on this train was access to Pullman's pool cars; the train became
considerably bigger during the summer travel months, and rather than CP having
to own sleepers to cover a market that only existed four months out of the
year, they were happy to allow Pullman to provide cars and crews from their
Florida pool, which was mostly inactive during the summer. Because of this, the
Mountaineer is one of the few trains in Canada that routinely carried "foreign"
sleeping cars, lettered either for Pullman or sometimes in the liveries of
railroads participating in the ownership of the Pullman Sleeping Car Co.
The Walthers solarium car is only a stand-in for the Pullman built Soo Line
"RIVER series" cars. Unfortunately, these cars were sold to the U.S. Gov't in
1943 for use as hospital cars, and were neither returned nor replaced. After
WWII CP was responsible for supplying the tail end car, providing at first
their RIVER series cars (which look vastly different than the Walthers model)
and later MOUNT series cars.
Likewise the Walthers diner, which is a Pullman built car, while the Soo
diners that operated east of either Swift Current or Moose Jaw were from AC&F.
A CP diner would be appropriate on the run west of Calgary.
Hope this helps.
Dennis
