"Mixed Trains" usually consisted of both freight and passenger equipment and performed much the same duties as did a way freight. "Way Freights" were usually tri-weekly locals which switched all stations along the line where required, and picked up and set out empties and loaded cars, besides loading and unloading LCL (less then carload lots) of freight however they weren’t equipped to handle express or passengers.

"Mixed Trains" were always run as second class trains, even when they ran over parts of main line subdivisions like the Brooks Sub. east of Calgary, and they were therefore superior to all but the most important "hot shot" freights which were usually of the same second class category. On secondary main lines like the Red Deer and Leduc subdivisions between Calgary and Edmonton these mixed trains were superior to all freights and therefore only had to clear the main track for first class passenger trains and all freights were compelled to stay clear of these mixed runs. They usually didn’t run on a daily schedule but the one consist would leave in one direction one day and return the next. They were never scheduled to run on a Sunday as far as I can recall.

As far back as 1948 there was one notable exception to these branch line mixed runs and that was on the Coutts and Stirling Subdivisions between Lethbridge and Coutts on the US border, a total distance of 67 miles. Here trains 543 and 544 were first class and the consist was a gasoline electric "Doodle Bug" or as they were sometimes called a "Skunk Car", because of the way the distillate they burned, smelled and the exhaust smoked. These units could pull a box car when required but when they did, I believe that a brakeman was added to the two man crew of engineer and conductor. There were times when the Gas Electric Car was held for repairs. Then a good old D10 4-6-0 steamer, with a consist which included a day coach, express car and caboose, would handle the run. I’m told that this didn’t happen too often, though. My old 1941 time table shows a three trips a week mixed train schedule on this Coutts run just like any of the other "Mixed Trains" on other branch lines.

The first "mixed train" that I rode was in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s when I remember spending parts of several summers camping at Sylvan Lake which is located 18 miles west of Red Deer on the CPR’s Alberta Central subdivision. I don’t recall whether or not our family traveled between Red Deer and the lake on a passenger or "mixed" train, but I do know that "mixed trains" numbered 613 and 614 were still scheduled to run six days a week as late as 1948. Thus it is quite likely that the ACR never did have regular passenger running over it, in which case the first "mixed train" that I rode on was to and from Sylvan Lake. My old 1941 time table shows that passenger train number 523 was scheduled to leave Calgary at 9:10 and arrive in Red Deer at 12:10. Then the ACR "Mixed # 613 was timed to leave at 13:05 and arrive at Sylvan Lake at 14:20. All that I remember about the trip was that the train had to back up the hill south of Red Deer for about 2 miles then, when the switch was opened, proceed westward through heavy bush and tree covered country. My twin brother and I kept a sharp look out for bears, as I recall, on that part of the trip.

The very first "Mixed Train" that I can distinctly recall riding was on the 27 ½ mile run of train 802 south from Revelstoke to Arrowhead at the head of the Arrow Lakes in central British Colombia. This would have been around 1936 when returning from a holiday at Vancouver when my parents decided to extend the vacation two more days. Instead of staying on our eastbound main line passenger train from Vancouver to Calgary, a twenty-four hour run, we detrained in Revelstoke at about 8-30 am. After breakfast in the station restaurant we caught "Mixed Train" number 802 which left at 10 o-clock every Wednesday and Saturday for the 27 ½ mile run south to Arrowhead.

That short "Mixed" pulled out at 10 am. It probably stopped at Greenslide, 10 miles south, and again at Wigwam, another 7 miles further south to unload LCL freight or pick up or detrain passengers, or set off empty freight cars to be loaded and picked up several days later. I remember my twin brother and I climbing off the train at these stops to pick wild raspberries which grew close to the tracks along the right of way. The arrival at Arrowhead was timed to connect with the lake steamer "Minto" which only came into Arrowhead twice a week. All too soon, at an average speed of 19 mph, the little boat train arrived at Arrowhead.

The ship was due to leave at 12:35 for the three hour run to the beautiful town of Nakusp where the SS Minto (the CPR’s steam powered paddle wheeler) tied up for the night. The next morning it steamed out of Nakusp at 7 am. to arrive at Robson West at 5:15 where the Kettle Valley Express number 12 was due at 6:31. It took the five of us east to arrive at Lethbridge at 5:25 the next afternoon in time to catch train 537, which would put us into Calgary at 10:35 that evening a full 50 hours later than if we had stayed on the CPR’s Dominion two days previous. But then we would have missed both the paddle wheeler boat ride and the short trip on the CPR’s "Arrowhead Bullet".

The next "mixed train" the two of us would ride was what we in Calgary called "The Kneehill Mixed". This assignment left Calgary station every Monday morning at 7:25 with a steel water car, a combination express and baggage car, a old wooden day coach then the train crew’s caboose. It was in late August and the two of us were going to Midlandvale, just west of Drumheller to stay with our father’s sister, Aunt Mary, for a little more then a week before starting back to grade seven in an east Calgary junior high school. I don’t recall if there were any other passengers on the train that morning because I guess that the conductor wanted both Harold and me where, at Dad’s request, he could keep an eye on us, so he assigned the two of us to share a seat up in the caboose cupola. Well that was OK with us because the view from up there was the best.

Right on time, with all the express loaded we headed east 2 ½ miles to Alyth where fifteen or twenty freight cars were picked up behind the water car. Again we were off, passing the flag stop at Ogden, stopping at Shepard station at 8:15 and crossing over to the Strathmore subdivision. Our train number 632 probably picked up or set off several more cars at Shepard and was due to arrive at its next stop at Langdon at 8:40. We left there ten minutes later after opening the switch to leave the Strathmore Sub. to get on the line that would take us toward Drumheller. The speed limit on this part of the line was 30 mph and the track appeared to be very rough by the way the box cars ahead and that old light wooden caboose were rocking from side to side. However the conductor, who was now sitting on the other side of the cupola, assured us that his train hadn’t gone off the track for at least a week!

A stop was made at the hamlet of Dalroy to unload express and way freight and set off some empty grain cars for loading. Then it was on toward Keoma (photo, left) for more of the same then at mileage 26 the larger town of Irricana was reached and there the smoky old locomotive was spotted for coal. Harold and I were then allowed to walk up to the station with the conductor to watch him register his train, pick up train orders and deliver way bills to the agent operator there. When given a signal the whole train pulled ahead and spotted the express and way cars at the station. Then us kids were told to climb aboard for the thirteen mile ride to Beiseker and Acme where the crew did the necessary switching, then everything stopped for lunch because it was now noon. The tail end brakeman made a large pot of tea, enough for all, and Harold and I washed our sandwiches down with it.

After leaving Acme the country changed and we went down a wide valley that gradually narrowed with a small creek running alongside of the track. Soon we stopped and switched the town of Carbon, 79 miles from our Calgary starting point. Now there were only twenty miles to go to our destination but the valley got even narrower, the creek got wider and the train speed was limited in many places to just fifteen mph. Thus it took nearly two hours before we finally arrived at Kneehill at about three o’clock that afternoon.

There Aunt Mary met us and thanked the gracious train crew for delivering the two of us safe and sound, then she drove us to her home just across the Red Deer river from the CP yard at Nacmine where we watched our train being put away and made ready for the next day’s run to Bassano. This was on a Monday and Harold and I would leave for Calgary on that same "Mixed Train" ten days later. The two of us had brought our bicycles with us, in the baggage car, and we used them to tour up and down that part of the Drumheller valley and to ride to the best places along the Red Deer River which was nice and warm and just right for swimming that time of year.

It was on a Thursday that our westbound "Mixed" was due to leave Kneehill at 8 o’clock and arrive in Calgary at four PM. The only part of that run that I really remember was when we were going through the town of Shepard and from the cupola we saw kids walking home from their first day of the new school year. They also saw Harold and me and I bet that they wished they could have missed a day of school to ride a "Mixed Train".

My older brother Floyd held a job firing the Kneehill Mixed back in 1946 when he first got out of the air force, and he took many pictures of the train and locomotive along the route. At that time the locomotive he and engineer Charlie Hatcher had was a coal-burning, hand fired, Pacific type numbered 2521, a G2 class built in 1907. These engines, when built, were used to haul main line passenger trains but when the newer heavier steel cars were added to these trains larger more powerful locomotives were required. The smaller Pacifics were then relegated to lighter branch line passenger assignments then eventually to secondary trains such as the Kneehill Mixed. (photo below, #2521 at Irricana, AB with the Kneehill Mixed)

The last "Mixed Train" that I worked on was after I had been promoted to Engineer and was called for a four day trip on the east "Way Freight" out of Alyth (Calgary). The first day we left Alyth as just a "Way Freight" to Bassano but on days two and three we ran as "Mixed Train numbers 627 and 628" from Bassano to Irricana and return. I don’t recall if there were ever any passengers, when I was the engineer, other than the watchman that was required to look after the locomotive during the overnight stay in Irricana. There was also the Roadmaster, who took the opportunity to patrol his track via train instead of using his open track motor (speeder). The reason had to be because the highways were much improved by then and gasoline was no longer rationed as it had been during the war so why would anyone choose to ride the all day slow moving mixed when the same route could be driven by automobile in just a few hours.