MONDAY, AUGUST 81, 19M

ONE OF THE earliest locomotives in use in

When [was a smau boy mytsmrp appointed in his place. {named Heaney was contractor'

father. who worked with the fuel department of the railway. occasionally took me with him and showed me the wonders that were ‘(G be seen. Some kind- ly locomotive drivers would take me in the engine and me ring the bell. It was a real thrill and something of which to brag to the other boys.

My uncle was at, least partial- ly responsible for the railway being built on The Island when it was. At that time he was a Conservative Member of the Legislature and when the rail- way bill came to a vote House was equally divided for and against. As chairman of the House committee. Donald Cameron cast the deciding vote.

At that time my father was prospecting for gold in Color- ado but railroading must have been in the family blood for at that time he returned to The Is- land and accepted a position with the new line.

As I recall Harry Houle and men named Rainie. Dicabou and MacPherson were respon- sible for placing the ties and railszhe engines were import- ed irom Great Britain. But. of course. that was before I was

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it. However. my memory goes back to railroading days of the 1890’s. At the start of that. last decade of the past century Jos- eph Unsworth was superintend- ent and Harry Anderson was mechanical superintendent. Mr. Unsworth was affectionately known as the ‘big fellow' and appeared to enjoy the unofficial e

titl . . He Liked to visit this various workshops. but objected to find- ing anyone loafing on the. job. Unpleasant scenes were avoid- because as he neared a shop a loud voice could be heard call- ing, "here comes the big fel- low". Because of this and many other things nearly everyone had a good word for him. CHANGES MADE 7 When he died he was succeed- ed by Alex MacDonald. known to railnaders as “Black Alex“ Shortly after this there was a change in the government at Ottawa and as was customary

then many staff changes were made. MacDonald reverted to his former post and George

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by J. E. CAMERON

Harry Anderson was dismissed and W.S. Poole named mechan- Iica‘l superintendent. At the same { time many others were dismiss- led but some were later reap- : pointed.

; Among locomotive engineers éof that day I remember John hunter. Nel Armour. David 'Pound. Nick Watson. Charles iMoore. Paddy Lappin. John lYeo. A.J. McLaine. Henry Cras- «well and Billy Good.

! Some of the conductors of that time i can recall were Gecrge Hibbit. Dan Cox. John MacDonald. John Munroe. Dan McKenna. Tom Stanley. Jim McKee and 5 Ryan. not George, but his father.

[believe railroading was at its peak then. but perhaps that is only the feeling of an old tim- er recalling the romance of an earlier era.

In those days the island rail- way was of narrow guage and all the coaches. box cars and flat cars were built in the shops in Charlottetown. All locomotive repairs were made here as well. However. when the guage was standardized no more cars were built here and most of the gen- eral locomotive repairs were made in Moncton.

During the year 1912 Superin- tendent Sharpe and mechanical superintendent Poole retired with Horace MacEwen replac- ing Sharpe and Peter McQuaid

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Ewen in turn was followed by TR. Grady who was succeeded by Mr. MacNutt and on his re.- tirement Ewen MacKinnon look

over. WORST WINTER

One of the worst winters I rcan recall was in 1905. I am the ‘only member left of the crew which left Charldttetown with a snow plow. locomotives and a number of cars. We arriv- ed at Fredericton —— a distance {)f only 25 miles -- three weeks aier.

l Mr. Kelly was our conductor and the engineers were Herb Love. Anthony Flynn and D an gMacDonald. I was fireman with IDan: Tom Clark with Flynn and lWalter Craswell with Love. During the year 1900 the old I Hillsborough B 1' id g e was I under construe ti o n. A man

SERVING

wish

replacing Poole. but M e tried and an undertaker gathered title of master mechanic. Mac- the remains in a basket. We

CHARLOTI'ETOWN

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this province. Old Number 8. shown above was a wood-burner. ‘

A Railroader Recdlls'

I

and one of his foreman was it a med Oulton. He was in charge of building the approa- ches. Starting from the edge of the channel. plies were driven into the mud in rows some dis- tance apart. three rows abreast until the shore was reached.

Large timber was placed on top of the piles and a rail w a y track laid on the timbers. T h e earth fill required was taken from Lon g's field. near St. Dunstan‘s University and push- ed on flat cars ahead of the in- comotive. On the first car was a plow arrangement with a long cable. As e lead car came to the end of the wooden approach the engine was uncou- pled from the train and the plow shoved the earth off the flat car dropping it down through the trestle work.

The work went on continuou- sly. I was fireman on the night shift starting at 6 pm. and knoc- king off at 6 a.m. One morning at four o‘clock I noticed the body of a man on the track: he was badly twisted and laying near the Kenslngton Road cros-

sing. We always stopped there to let the brakeman off so he

ready for the fill on the South- port side of the river. R ails were placed leading to Murray Harbour and a locomotive fer- ried over to the landing at the approach.

Llin we were transported across in a small boat which landed us at the end of the tres- tle. Narrow planks were placed over the timbers and we had to walk on these to the embank- ment. it was easy for young fellows bUt not so simple for some of the older chaps one of whom was an engineer we called Sandy.

He was normally a jolly Irishman. but he flatly refused to walk the plank and started to crawl over on his nands and knees. We told him this was not allowed by special order of Mr. Rooney. Said Sandy. "I don't give a damn for either Heaney or Ouiton I won‘t walk on that thing".

We generally had steam up on e locomotive before Sandy arrived and since we all carried our dinner with us would put the dinner pails on top of the boil- or to be sure of a good hot meal at noon. One of the group was a firm believer in a vege- table diet and maintained it was a sure way to good health. He may have been right. but personally I velleve the most enjoyable way to follow a vege- table diet is to let the cow cat

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mom {roast beef dinner later.

‘ Speaking of diets reminds me of an earlier paragraph when I s poke of getting to Fred- ericton. During those three weeks we never slept in a bed and were often short of food: sanetlme‘s w survived only through the courtesy of the snow shoveilers w h 0 came from the district

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On one occasion when we were fighting our way through Watt's cutting a man named Keefe. who lived in the vicinity. broughtus a Ml dinner of corn- ed beef and cabbage. I have al- ways thought that was about the nicest thing anyone could have done. He had a conscience and I believe it. was Mark Twain who once said 'con- vscience takes up more room than all the other fellows’.

We always after had a lot of respect for Mr. Keefe. Thought- fulness is always appreciated. but never more so than when your stomach is empty.

e used to ask "how do you manage to get water and coal for the locomotive?" We had two men on 'the tender tank and they simply shovelled snow into the tank. The heat melted it and the water injected into the boiler provided steam. By the way. snow water was what we drank and used to make our

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The coal problem was not so simple. It had to be taken out of railway cars at different sta- tions and hauled over the banks of snow. .

When the engine stalled snow had to be cleared from under the wheels so the. locomotive could be backed up. or as it was commonly said. ‘kick out'. After kicking out we would back up for a distance sufficient to get a good run for the next attack.

Even with that driving power we seldom dented snow bank for more than the. length of the locomotive. When we did that we sat and waited tor the shovellers to dig us out again while we grabbed a nap.

The cutting was so deep there were steps made up the side and six men passed the s n o w from one to another higher up till it reached the top. All tele— graph poles were buried out of

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.In those days we had no ro- tary plows; only small locomo- tives and wedge. plows. But even so a rotary plow w0uld have been of no value in sucn a

cutting since there was no room to displace the snow. Occasionally amusing things

(SONTINUED ON PAGE 12-A

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could turn the switch sending us out to the bridge. “ACCIDENTS '

i Someone in the group identi- ‘Ified the body. and if my mem- » ry serves me his name in MacEachern. Police were noti-

never learned the facts. but it

'wns believed he had ried to climb between two cars and fell to the tracks on a train was moving. The body was .such a sight I was unable to eat my breakfast when I got home.

Another accident occurred i during construction of tho pil- hrs on which the bridge rost- ed. A man named Amtby Atkins was the night watchman a nd one morning he was missing. His body was never found and to lthis day no one knows what really happened At the time it. was believed ho had folio is into the mould around the pil- lar into which cement was being poured.

Whilevwe were working at the Charlottetown side the piles and timbers were being made

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