The first few years working as a C.N. brakeman certainly was a great learning experience for me. And, even though I was being called for work at all hours of night and day and continually being subjected to lay-off’s during slack periods, I wouldn’t have passed up the experience for all the tea in China. The thrill of railroading in the steam era, particularly on the Rainy River end when the grain rush was on to the Lakehead, is impossible to describe adequately in words but I will try to give you the feeling of what it was like.
Rainy River is approximately one hundred and forty miles southeast of Winnipeg on the Ontario, Minnesota borders just a few miles inland from the south end of Lake of the Woods. The first twenty-five miles of our journey on leaving Winnipeg took us through Lorette, Dufresene and over to Ste. Anne, where we always stopped for water and inspection to comply with the Uniform Code of Operating Rules. Ste. Anne had a train order operator on duty twenty-four hours a day and the dispatcher in Winnipeg frequently gave us additional train orders at this point. We always watched to see what indication was on the train order board as we arrived there.
Leaving Ste. Anne, we continued on another thirty-five miles in a southeasterly route. We passed through the little villages of Giroux, La Broquerie, Marchand, and then up a fairly steep grade to Bedford. A few more miles and we were at Woodridge, which was situated on the southeastern edge of the Sandilands Provincial Forest. The first three stations had operators on duty at least part of the time and Woodridge had a twenty-four hour operator. It was always necessary to stop at Woodridge because it was approximately halfway to Rainy River and there was a coal dock there. When pulling a tonnage train of grain it was impossible to go from Winnipeg to Rainy without additional coal. The fireman also took more water while the brakeman made his inspection.
Continuing on another twenty-five miles took us through Badger, Vassar, South Jct. and Sprague. There was a twenty-four hour operator at Sprague and, as well, the Canadian Customs Officers were there to inspect all westbound trains because they had passed through the U.S.A. for forty miles on their homeward journey. On most occasions, the customs inspections were very cursory and took only a few minutes, but some conductor or tail-end brakeman had taken advantage of the lax customs inspections to smuggle a few bottles of cheap American liquor and cigarettes back home with them. They had been caught and consequently customs inspections thereafter took on ridiculous proportions. Whereas it used to take only five or ten minutes to be cleared by customs, it then took well over an hour with the customs man opening box car doors and looking in at intervals along the whole train. Animosity quickly built up between train crews and customs men because of the pettiness of the operation. Those of us who smoked would continue to occasionally hide a carton of American cigarettes in the hollow steel frame alongside a journal box on a boxcar and it would be virtually impossible to locate. The head of the customs office at Sprague at that time and who had given the order to delay all further westbound trains for searches was, I believe, a guy called Carruthers or some similar sounding name. In any event, he was thoroughly hated by C.N. train crews and probably by his own men as well. I spent many cold winter nights sitting up in a steam engine waiting for the customs man to walk the length of our train; opening boxcar doors every fourth or fifth car looking in to see if we were smuggling cigarettes. I hope there is a place in hell for Mr. Carruthers.
Leaving Sprague, it was only another ten miles to Middlebro, which was the last Canadian station before crossing into the U.S.A. Ten more miles took us into the town of Warroad, Minnesota, on the southwest corner of Lake of the Woods. There was always an operator on duty there and when heading east it was our last stop for water. There was only thirty-five miles left to go and as we left Warroad the next little station was Swift. A few years before I started on the road, there had been a very bad head-on collision at Swift with some deaths. Swift also had a train order board. Then we went up a grade to Roosevelt and Williams which both had order boards, then finally came just across the bridge from the town of Rainy River itself. The head-end brakeman had to run in to the station and turn in some customs papers to the American Customs before we pulled slowly across the bridge back into Canada and yarded our train at Rainy River.
Often during the grain rush, we would be speeding through the night, bouncing around in the cab of a dimly lit engine with a tonnage train of grain behind us. There would be a fist full of train orders hanging from a clip on the throttle quadrant containing meets, waits, superseding orders, annulments, and run-lates on passenger trains No. 33 or No. 34, keeping us right on our toes. Often, we depended solely on our railway watch and time card to keep us out of harms way.
It was on nights like that, when the dispatcher was running four or five sections each of No. 944 and No. 946, when orders were constantly being annulled and meets changed, that you hoped like hell that the dispatcher hadn’t forgotten to annul the meet for the opposing train as well. On some occasions, the station operator has forgotten to include and order changing a meet, in with the rest of the orders to one of the trains involved. Only the watchful eye of the train crew noticing an order number missing from those numbers listed on the clearance avoided a head-on collision. Sometimes, in spite of the best efforts of everyone, mistakes were made resulting in wrecks and lost lives. On occasion, wrecks resulted because of drinking prior to work or on the job.
Many times when bucking passenger train No. 33 or 34, all three of us up in the engine would be looking at our timecard and continually glancing at our watches to see if we had time to go one more station before heading-in. On those occasions (which were all too frequent) when it was nip-and-tuck and the engineer though we could make it, he would look over to us with his watch in his hand and hold his arm up indicating he intended to try it. These were the nights when you placed so much of your faith in the skill and competence of the man at the throttle. To signify our concurrence with his decision we would hold our arms up and give him a "highball" sign. Thus, over the roar inside the engine we communicated back and forth with hand signals because if anything went wrong, or if we didn’t clear the passenger train’s leaving time by five minutes, we were all held equally responsible and could all be fired.
