The ATA Magazine - Editor’s Notebook
Volume 67, Nov/Dec 1986
Riding the Musket Special
I’ve had some good train rides. Not many, but good ones. As a boy, I rode a “pet” steam engine pulling a passenger train one night from Calgary to Lethbridge. This engine was the engineer’s hobby as well as his vocation. He spent his days off polishing the brass and washing the engine in the round house. I’ve hitched rides on the Canmore Mines Number Four as it spotted coal cars on the mainline Canadian Pacific Railway tracks. Now with a diesel hidden inside the boiler, Number Four has toured me around Calgary’s Heritage Park on occasion.
A CP vice-president once had me to supper on his private coach, parked by the Lethbridge station. The car came with valet, silver cutlery and fine china. I’ve ridden a flat car, pushed by a diesel yard engine, out onto the high level bridge at Lethbridge to photograph a crew replacing ties high above the Old Man River.
Finding a good train ride these days isn’t easy. Canadian National and CP have turned their passenger trains over to Via Rail. Well, almost all of them. CN still operates one passenger service in Canada, the Muskeg Special, between Edmonton and Fort McMurray. I rode that train last month.
There were two reasons to take the train; one was the ride itself. The other was that the train provided the only way of getting to where I was going, apart from chartering an airplane. Where I was going, along with Associate Editor Phyllis de Luna, was to Chard, Alberta, which is situated about 120 kilometers south of Fort McMurray, and ultimately to the settlement of Janvier, about 16 kilometers east of Chard.
At Janvier we found Father R Perin School, the newest school in the Northland School Division. This beautiful new building, with its fine staff and wonderful kids, would complement any suburb in the province. Situated in a clearing in the bush, it is a magnet for native children living on the reserve and others in the Janvier settlement.
Our journey was one of amazing contrasts. The train crew makes the trip twice a week, and this run is its regular assignment. The crew members know everyone along the way, and they run the train to serve these people. Riding the train is like stepping back in time. The passenger coach, which is vintage 1940, rolls along behind two baggage cars and a diesel engine at a leisurely 50 kilometres per hour. Food service consists of fried egg sandwiches and coffee served up by the conductor from the kitchen in the caboose. Passengers can expect one of the two enginemen to walk back from the cab to see how they’re doing.
The region served by the train north of Lac La Biche is bush country, endless and untouched by civilization. Nothing is left at Chard apart from some abandoned shacks and a railroad siding. Finding Janvier and its new school in such a setting was therefore all the more remarkable.
Our story and pictures appear in this issue. This is our way of taking readers on a very special field trip. Everyone we met along the way welcomed us and made us feel at home.
As for the train ride, it was a good one.
Volume 67, Nov/Dec 1986
Riding the Musket Special
I’ve had some good train rides. Not many, but good ones. As a boy, I rode a “pet” steam engine pulling a passenger train one night from Calgary to Lethbridge. This engine was the engineer’s hobby as well as his vocation. He spent his days off polishing the brass and washing the engine in the round house. I’ve hitched rides on the Canmore Mines Number Four as it spotted coal cars on the mainline Canadian Pacific Railway tracks. Now with a diesel hidden inside the boiler, Number Four has toured me around Calgary’s Heritage Park on occasion.
A CP vice-president once had me to supper on his private coach, parked by the Lethbridge station. The car came with valet, silver cutlery and fine china. I’ve ridden a flat car, pushed by a diesel yard engine, out onto the high level bridge at Lethbridge to photograph a crew replacing ties high above the Old Man River.
Finding a good train ride these days isn’t easy. Canadian National and CP have turned their passenger trains over to Via Rail. Well, almost all of them. CN still operates one passenger service in Canada, the Muskeg Special, between Edmonton and Fort McMurray. I rode that train last month.
There were two reasons to take the train; one was the ride itself. The other was that the train provided the only way of getting to where I was going, apart from chartering an airplane. Where I was going, along with Associate Editor Phyllis de Luna, was to Chard, Alberta, which is situated about 120 kilometers south of Fort McMurray, and ultimately to the settlement of Janvier, about 16 kilometers east of Chard.
At Janvier we found Father R Perin School, the newest school in the Northland School Division. This beautiful new building, with its fine staff and wonderful kids, would complement any suburb in the province. Situated in a clearing in the bush, it is a magnet for native children living on the reserve and others in the Janvier settlement.
Our journey was one of amazing contrasts. The train crew makes the trip twice a week, and this run is its regular assignment. The crew members know everyone along the way, and they run the train to serve these people. Riding the train is like stepping back in time. The passenger coach, which is vintage 1940, rolls along behind two baggage cars and a diesel engine at a leisurely 50 kilometres per hour. Food service consists of fried egg sandwiches and coffee served up by the conductor from the kitchen in the caboose. Passengers can expect one of the two enginemen to walk back from the cab to see how they’re doing.
The region served by the train north of Lac La Biche is bush country, endless and untouched by civilization. Nothing is left at Chard apart from some abandoned shacks and a railroad siding. Finding Janvier and its new school in such a setting was therefore all the more remarkable.
Our story and pictures appear in this issue. This is our way of taking readers on a very special field trip. Everyone we met along the way welcomed us and made us feel at home.
As for the train ride, it was a good one.