Canadian Pacific Railway

Inaugural trip of No. 1 The Canadian Ottawa West April 24, 1955

Bruce Chapman

Looking at the picture of the first #1 leaving Ottawa West 4/24/1955:

I believe the guy with the tie on at the rear of the train is probably the operator who has hooped up the head-end and tail-end with any train orders and clearance that they needed. The train order signal is, and always was red.

In steam days, all trains stopped at Ottawa West, and the transcontinentals, #1/2, #7/8, #9/10, and #17/18 would get their locomotives watered, rods greased and fires cleaned, mostly by the stop staff who would walk over to the servicing area
just west of Bayview Road from the roundhouse, where there was a pit that the ashes could be dumped; later, the poor unloved sectionmen would come in and shovel out these pits onto the area around there.

Now that the dieselized passenger trains weren’t stopping, a little arm was fastened to the lower part of the red train order signal for a yellow flag to show that stopping was not required. You can see the yellow flag flapping in the wind below the
semaphores. At night, we had to take out a yellow lantern, but usually kept it beside us when hooping up orders.

Now during 3 timetable periods in 1958-1959, trains #1 and #262 would have a regularly-scheduled meet at Ottawa West
at 1640, and you can see this in the included timetable in bold numbers. By this time, #261/262, the day pool trains from Ottawa to Brockville were normally two RDC Budd Cars. However, on long weekends, the normal RDC’s would be shanghaied by Montreal and used on the Lachute Subdivision trains, and then a conventional train would be used to Brockville.
Normally, an RS10 with a steam generator would be used, but the odd time, none was available, and steam would take over, as the accompanying train order shows.

You’ll notice at this point in time that there is no maximum speed on the Carleton Place Subdivision, only on curves.

ENLARGE

Now from the accompanying timetable copy from 1959, you can see that Ottawa West had a siding capacity of 14 cars.
This capacity was the CPR’s way of saying that the siding had a capacity of 14 40-foot boxcars (with no power attached).
If you look at the pic of #1 leaving Ottawa West, the track coming out from the left bottom is an extension of pit #23 at the roundhouse...it crossed Bayview Road and headed west....there is a crossover near the water standpipe that lets somebody
in the eastbound siding return to the mainline, or if an engine had to be changed off on a mainline train, the engine would come out of the roundhouse, and wait for the incoming train east of that crossover. The happened quite often in steam days, as this morning Brockville pool train had come from Prescott, and if an engine change was required, this would be the place.

Let’s get back to #262 with the engine 1270 in the train orders. 1270 was worth about 2 40-foot boxcars. The train normally has a baggage car and at least 2 if not 3 coaches...all 80 foot cars. That with the locomotive gives you about 10 car lengths .....let’s hope he fits between the west switch of the siding up at Carruthers Avenue, and the crossover. If he doesn’t fit, #1 would be stuck at signal 916 east of the station coming off the Prince of Wales Bridge, as there was little interlocking in the station to prevent any misjudges.

In the picture, the Humane Society right behind the station is gone, moved to the ‘burbs, and the building across Bayvew Road, M. Zagerman is still there, now Merkley Supply.