Click on each image for a closer look!
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This information and these images come from my wife’s family. Her father. the late Frank “Barney” Barnes, was, at the time that he became a CPR engineer, the youngest person to do so in the history of the CPR. Yet he was 38 years old at the time! In those days, you had to follow a long development path before becoming an engineer. He taught himself everything he had to know about the new-fangled diesels and got the job because many of the steam engine engineers wanted nothing to do with the new “new-fangled” diesels.
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On Thursday, July 24th, 1958, the following article written by Shirley McNeill and these images were published in the Montreal Gazette and republished in September, 1958 in the Spanner, the Internal CPR Employee News Magazine.
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If Dad is an Engineer, He’s a Boy’s Hero
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“Spending a day with Daddy can be a pretty big occasion for any boy, particularly if Daddy happens to be an engineer”
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Seven year old Chayne Barnes took one look at the big locomotive getting ready to pull out of the Windsor Station and announced, “I’m going to be an engineer when I grow up.”
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Up in the cab of the big diesel, his Dad, Frank Barnes, grinned down at Chayne and his older brother, Frank Jr., 9. It was just another run for Engineer Barnes, but for the boys it was a big day.
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“This is the first time I’ve ever been here,” said Young Frank as he and Chayne trotted down the platform with their father.
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Both boys had been to smaller stations in the suburbs and when they were “little fellows” their father had taken them to see steam locomotives in operation. .
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From the gate to the engine Dad had a time keeping up to the questions. The boys wanted to know what train this was, were it was going, and when they got up to the big engine, they became curious about how the brakes worked.
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“I’m used to questions,” Mr. Barnes laughed. “The boys have always been interested in my work and when I get home from a run they want to know all about the trip.”
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The boys were hoisted up into the cab of the engine and Chayne, the potential engineer of the future, had a chance to sit in “the driver’s seat” and try out an engineer’s cap for size.
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Back down on the platform again we asked Chayne if he still wanted to be an engineer. His answer was a nod and a big grin.
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A railway engineer for nearly 12 years, Frank Barnes joined the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1941 and worked his way up. He’s covered a lot of territory in those years, having worked in the Revelstoke division in B.C., the Brandon and Kenora divisions in the Prairie Region, as well as in the Farnham division in the east. .
Being subject to call at any time means Mr. Barnes’ hours are irregular. Bu none of the Barnes family minds. “My wife knows the railway business. She grew up in a railway family so she’s pretty familiar with the life.”
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Besides his two young sons, Mr. Barnes has a 17-year-old son Gerry and two daughters, Patsy, 11, and Roberta, 10. Mr. Barnes admits that the two girls aren’t so interested in the railway as the boys, “But they still ask questions. They love riding on the train and when they do they usually want to know if I’m going to do the driving.”
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Today, engineers are not quite the instant heroes that they were in those days but many of us fondly remember when they were.
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Posting by Russ Milland
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