Railway stations often had a restaurant or “beanery”. These were not generally for the public but for employees away from home. Most beaneries on the CNR were laid out in a classic horseshoe shaped counter with vinyl covered pedestal stools, I can still hear them squeak! The kitchen servery was convenient to the counter as the waitress or “beanery queen” was often cook and chief dishwasher too.
The beaneries were operated by Canada Railway News Limited, a company incorporated in 1883 to sell newspapers and magazines. In 1902 the company expanded its services into railway restaurants and hotels and the sale of food products on trains. The beaneries also prepared sandwiches for the passenger train News Agent or Newsie. The “Newsie” no longer plies his trade and few beaneries remain although some, such as McBride, B.C, have reopened. Today the firm is CARA, familiar at airports and many fine restaurants.
Railway employees could purchase “pie books”, these contained 5 cent coupons and a total value of $5. A good meal could be purchased for less than a dollar. Often workers would send their entire paycheck home and the “pie book” became his only means on monetary exchange. Stuck for loose change, a book might be purchased by payroll deduction only to be resold to the restaurant for cash and spent at the local beer parlor.
The menu varied and the entrees were given nicknames, poached eggs on toast were “Adam and Eve” on a raft, “Two sunnies on a flat” were two fried eggs, sunny side up on a hotcake. A favourite among crews late at night was “Graveyard Stew”, toast in hot milk and nutmeg. Hotcakes with syrup were “a string of flats with a can of oil”, “Eye Opener” was black coffee.
The restaurants were very careful with inventory and serving quantities. Lolly Fehr in Blue River remembers a conductor who insisted on five sausages instead of the prescribed four. Lolly would give the uncooked sausage a stretch and a twist making two out of one! These were 24 hour operations and waitress quarters were upstairs in the station. Crews were often chased off the fire escape with a broom for raising hell with the girls.
Another recollection is of a rail shuttle that was put in service in 1919 on the 2.8 mile Kamloops Terminal Subdivision to transport passengers between Kamloops and Kamloops Junction. Early service was provided by a Model T Ford engined jitney No. 15700, carrying 10 passengers and a trailer, No.15701 carrying 16 passengers. These cars were built at C.N.’s Winnipeg Shops. Gas Car No. 15809 followed. When passenger trains no longer backed into the city, the C.N.R. continued to operate the jitney for employees
The "jitney" was a family pastime for my sisters and I. Maggi and Joe Lemiex ran the beanery at Kamloops Junction, as kids we were always welcome to a piece of pie having ridden over from town on the jitney. I don’t recall turning the jitney at the Junction; in town there was a short spur to an “armstrong” turntable on the east side of the track coming off the Thompson River Bridge. Literally, a long pole stuck out from the end of the turntable and us kids helped turn the jitney for its return to the Junction.
This jitney era came to and end when it was discontinued in 1949 and replaced by a bus.
