Caption: On the Labour Day weekend prior to the big VIA cuts, I took a "train ride" from Winnipeg to Jasper, taking advantage of my CN employee discount to stay at the Jasper Park Lodge. (I know, a tough assignment--but someone had to do it!) In those days, time-keeping was fairly good and within a couple of hours in the afternoon, you could shoot both the westbound and eastbound Super Continentals and the eastbound and westbound "Rupert Rocket" (later known as the "Skeena"). Here we see No. 10 arriving in Jasper behind the usual CN F7Au and SGU. (CN F-units were also leased by VIA for the Winnipeg-Thompson, Winnipeg-Churchill trains, and occasionally the Winnipeg-Capreol train prior to the 15 November 1981 cut which made many VIA FP9s available for regular use on those trains.)
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That couple of hours between trains was perfect. I would take the family for a train ride to Jasper and back from Edmonton. Leave first thing in the morning, shop and have lunch in Jasper, home again later that evening.