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Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from all of us at the TRHA!

by Russ Milland
CPR’s Canadian – Beaconsfield, Quebec – Dec 24th, 1970

Click on each image for a closer look!

As we approach the holiday season, Bob Dickson, our Museum Manager and all of us on the Board of the Toronto Railway Historical Association (TRHA) would like to wish our volunteers, our supporters and everyone who follows this TRHA News blog, best wishes for a joyous and a safe Christmas holiday.   We look forward to continuing our rewarding relationship with all of you into the new year.

Derek Boles shares with us these photos from a Christmas Eve in the past. He explains:

“On a bleak Christmas Eve in 1970, Canadian Pacific’s flagship transcontinental streamliner, No. 1, The Canadian, speeds through Beaconsfield, Quebec on its 2,880-mile journey to Vancouver, BC. The trip began fifteen miles to the east at CPR’s venerable Montreal passenger terminal, Windsor Station at 1:55 PM. Between 11:40 PM that evening and12:30 AM on Christmas Day, this train will be combined with No. 11, The Canadian’s Toronto section, at Sudbury, Ontario.

On Christmas Eve fifteen years earlier, there were 53 CPR passenger trains at Toronto Union Station. By the time these photographs were taken, there were only a handful: to Vancouver, Buffalo, Owen Sound, Havelock and Windsor ON. All of them were Rail Diesel Cars, or Dayliners as CPR called them, except The Canadian, the last full-service CPR train to be serviced at the John Street Roundhouse. Today, most of the route between Montreal and Sudbury has been abandoned and VIA’s Canadian uses Canadian National tracks most of the way to Vancouver.
Model railroaders who have long wished for an accurate model of The Canadian have much to be thankful for in 2012. Rapido Trains, owned and operated by TRHA board member Jason Shron,  introduced a precision HO version of the streamliner, with ten cars and three diesel locomotives.
Both photographs were taken by TRHA Historian Derek Boles, while home for the holidays from Ryerson University during Christmas 1970.”
Posting by Russ Milland on behalf of Andrew, Bob, Dan, Derek, Ed, Glenn, Jason, John, Michael, Orin, Phil, Richard and myself; Photos and story by Derek Boles, TRHA Historian 
CPR’s Canadian – Beaconsfield, Quebec – Dec 24th, 1970
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