Caption: Tracklaying of the new Canadian transcontinental railway takes place across the prairies in the Summer of 1882 under the watchful eye of William Cornelius Van Horne, famed "Abelsist Railway General in The World". An American railway builder, he took took up the challenge of building the railway for the CPR when things were behind, for $15,000 a year (1882 funds). He completed the railway in under half the projected time.

According to Pierre Berton's book "The National Dream", Winnipeg was the base of Van Horne's operation, and railway building contractors stockpiled it with living supplies, hoards of men, rail supplies, lumber, provisions, and horses in order to build the railway line further west. Supply trains were dispatched from Winnipeg to "end of track", that kept moving each day. Mobile boarding cars with kitchens and dormatories were kept nearby to house the "navvies" - the labourers toiling away grading, laying ties and spiking rails under sometimes harsh prairie conditions.

This is, of course, the dramatization: the filming of Pierre Berton's "The National Dream" - an eight-part series filmed by the CBC in 1973 and released in 1974 documenting the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Here, the filming crew are either rolling or setting up their shot with Van Horne (in black with hat, behind microphone) and Secretan (in grey). Workers toil away in the background laying and spiking down rails, while the supply train with 2-3 flatcars and Canadian Pacific "144" (really ORA's ex-CPR 4-4-0 136, borrowed for filming, backdated to 1880's appearance and given a different number) sits in the background. In this series, Van Horne was played by Canadian actor John Colicos, and Secretan by Davis Schurmann.

According to a source on the matter, the track-laying filming scenes here were done on CP's Cassils Subdivision between Miles 9 and 9.5, on the curve approaching Kitsum, Alberta.

Eric. W. Johnson photo, Dan Dell'Unto collection slide.