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Caption: In a scene that is played out hundreds of times every day (even today), but not often recorded, the engine crew has brought CN train 105, the Panorama, into their away from home terminal of Foleyet, Ontario and are headed to the bunkhouse. My father, on the left, was the engineer. The train is stopped with the coaches at the station, but with 8 head-end cars this day, the engines are near the west end of the platform. Three units were the standard power for this train, but on this date, it had 4, three GMs and 1 MLW.
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What a fabulous photo Don! It sure captures the essence of ‘The Crew Change’. I spent many a day and night in that little town and walked that platform countless times. Those aluminum lunch buckets are classic!
Thanks Paul. Lots of good memories from back then. Foleyet at least had a restaurant (if you dared) and a hotel with cold beer. The other crew change points of Brent and South Parry had nothing. Thanks again. Don
Lots of whiskers required to be pulling the throttle on that train. It must have been great sharing the cab with your Dad. Great photo.
Thanks Terry. My dad retired at the end of 1968 with 52 years of service (try getting that today!!) and was number 1 on the seniority list for a number of years. Numbers 3 & 4, and later 105 and 106, were the top jobs for engineers as you spent every night in your own bed. Left home at around 8AM and were back about 10PM. Worked every other day. Those were the days.
Paul O’Shell’s comment reminded me of an incident decades ago. I was head end brakeman on an eastbound train on the CP Windsor Sub. We had a meet at Lobo, last siding before London. The meet hadn’t arrived yet, so I prepared to go line him into the siding. It was about 0200 & raining heavily. I decided to put on my raincoat.We were on an RS-10 & they only had a single dome light inside, controlled by the engineer. Iasked “Guy” to put on thr light, and when he did, we noticed that water was coming in form outside. Guy had his aluminum bucket right under the light. He looked down at it & it was swimming in water both in the tray& underneath. Guy had a temper…he opened the side window & threw the bucket out the window as far as he could throw it, rulebooks,timetable etc were soaked & then evenly spread along the ROW beside us. When we left after the meet arrived, he had cooled off & said to me when I got the switch and entered the cab..”It time to get new stuff anyway” & then laughed. .
Maybe those lunch boxes came from the original manufacturer in Sudbury, ON
….. https://lmaymfg.ca/
Thanks Paul. I have no idea where my dad bought that lunch box, perhaps from where you mention. It was an interesting piece of equipment. There was a locking lid for the top portion where he kept all the rule books and locomotive instruction manuals. A small removal tray was on the lower portion below the opening. It was very versatile and could be used to hold down the dead man pedal when no spare flag staffs were available. OH, did I really just say that??
Thanks RonaldB as well. I thought those lunch buckets were waterproof. I knew the RS-10s weren’t!!!