The Wreck the Day Before the Turbo Wreck

December 10, 1968 was a momentous date in the history of press photography, Kingston history and Canadian railway technology. On that day. the press run of the CN Turbotrain struck a truck full of meat at Division Street level crossing near Mile 174 of the CN Kingston Subdivision.

Much less well-known was a train-vehicle collision the day before - Monday, December 9! Talk about a twofer! The first derailment had the potential to just as deadly dangerous, though there were many fewer press photographers around! 

A 49 year-old dumptruck driver, Alfred Manuel of RR2 Kingston was driving across the Montreal-Toronto CN mainline when a westbound Rapido train struck his truck. The time was 1430, and his truck was totalled, sustaining more than $9,000 damage. Though protected with gates, lights and bells, the Division Street level crossing had long been known to be dangerous, with trains moving at high speed, especially accelerating out of the severe curve at the CN Outer Station just to the east. Another complication was a single-track CP Kingston Subdivision crossing of Division Street just to the north of the CN, protected by a wig-wag signal!

An overhead view of the derailment site, with the CN alignment marked in a parallel blue line, CP in red, yellow arrow showing direction of travel and yellow starburst the approximate collision site. Note that the Division Street overpass was built out-and-around to the west of the existing straight alignment of Division Street.

What the engineer saw! A January, 1969 photo showing initial construction of the overpass, with the CN line disappearing to the east on a curve under the CP Kingston Subdivision flyover. The Rapido would have been coming out of the background on the north track (the left-most track in this photo). With visibility poor, accounts don't mention why the truck was on the crossing, even with electronic protection!

Black and white photos in this post are from the Queen's University Archives' Whig-Standard Fonds. The following photos, taken by a Whig photographer, they show the aftermath of the December 9 crash.  An account, along with only one photo (top photo), appeared as a twofer in the December 10 newspaper, along with the Turbo crash. The beauty of these archival images, which are held in the form of negatives, is that there are many more than what you might find perusing old newspapers. The job of the editor was to select the minimum number of photos that would tell a story, closely-cropping them, and leaving lots of room for other stories and of course, advertising!

Most of these views look 'timetable-west'. The photographer was taking advantage of the sunshine from the south side, as well as access from the level crossing.

The stopped Rapido, possibly Montreal-Toronto No 65, is clearly visible, marker lights and all. At times, the on-board crew appears at the rear door. The interesting variations in the photos include the various operating crew, section crew and officials that variously appear in each of the photos.

The dumptruck looks like an International Loadstar:

At left background is the Topnotch Feeds mill located just west of Division Street, along Counter Street.

The driver is questioned by police. An ambulance driver is close by:

Shortly thereafter, construction began on an overpass over CN at Division Street. This is the only view that looks southeast toward what would be the location of the Division Street overpass:

February, 1969 views of the overpass construction:

In just a few years, two passing tracks would be added just west of Division Street, to be known as Queens. The curve east of here, to Montreal Street, would be realigned. The Outer Station would be closed, and CN passenger operations in Kingston moved to the new CN (later VIA) passenger station on Counter Street.

Running extra...

The Queen's funeral was as awe-inspiring for the sheer spectacle as it was the precision and preparedness of those taking part in the military parade. The most remarkable image is the broadcaset screen capture above, showing the colossal colour of the Queen's Company, Grenadier Guards entering Windsor Castle ahead of the Royal Hearse as the Queen's funeral procession makes its way uphill on the spectator-lined Long Walk. 

I'm trying out Postcrossing It's a long-established postcard exchange website, where Postcrossers send and receive cards all over the world - 68,000,000+ so far. Fun facts: my first received card travelled from India, taking 29 days and covering 8,215 miles. The sender is a professor at the University of Madras, and has used Postcrossing in his Journalism and Communication teaching and research. This just might be addicting!

Streamlinermemories hosts a large number of scanned railway passenger documents. Here is the link to the CN page. It's one more online source - an alternative to going down to the dusty ol' archives!

Industry Profile: DuPont's Whitby Facility

The DuPont of Canada polyethylene film facility in Whitby was built in 1958 at 201 South Blair Street. Served by CN, the facility always caught my eye from aboard VIA Rail - after passing through CN's Oshawa yard with its panoply of paint schemes adorning hi-cube boxcars and open auto racks, then the LASCO steel plant and a wetland, there was always the hope of seeing a Sclair covered hopper or two there. Today, passengers would likely have their attention grabbed by the GO Transit/Metrolinx East Rail Maintenance Facility on the north side of the CN Kingston Sub, its 500,000 sq.ft. dwarfing the discretely diminutive ex-DuPont facility!

Switch points face west, diverging from the Whitby south service track. Several spurs' worth of covered hoppers were visible, as in this June, 2016 view from aboard VIA (top photo). Note fresh excavation and ballast on the newest spur at right. I am no performance films expert, nor chemist. The exact nature of the manufacturing processes and product lines and uses are well beyond the scope of this blog. But the fact that it was rail-served makes it of special interest. The plant sat in 160 acres in the Port Whitby district, expanding 11 times in its first 28 years. 

Due to increased use of plastics in daily life, the plant continued to add new product lines (product name and type, initial year of production, end uses):

• Sclair Film linear low-density polyethylene film, named for its Sarnia production site along the St. Clair River (for coffee, cheese, medical instrument and paper packaging)
• Vexar plastic netting (1960 - for produce packaging and fencing)
• Herox nylon monofilament (1967 - for brush bristles and thread)
• Dartek nylon film (1972 - for meat and cheese packaging, industrial applications)

Up to 25% of the facility's production was exported. New product lines at the facility were often the result of work done at the Kingston Research & Business Development Centre, built in 1955. Sclair, developed by Du Pont's research facility here, was the base product for several other products. Sclair was shipped to the Whitby facility where it was extruded into a film and then formed into flexible plastic tubing. Some employees also came from Kingston to staff expansions.

Two July, 2017 views from aboard VIA Rail (above and below). I usually made a point of noting the number of cars present on the various tracks. These are all plain-jane grey covered hoppers, though -  these notes don't go as far back as the Sclair car era, unfortunately:

• Aug 19/10 7 total
• Dec 16/10 2-2-1
• Mar 8/11 2-2, 1 off-spot
• Aug xx/11 2-2, 5 off-spot
• Sep 22/11 1-2-2-4
• May 15/12 2-2-2-0
• Jul 17/12 3-2-1-2
• Sep 27/12 1-2-2-2
• Feb 25/13 2-2-2
• Sep 18/14 1-2-2-3
• Nov 1/15 2-1-1-3
• Jun 5/16 3-2-2-4
• Mar 28/17 2-2-1
• Jul 21/17 1-3-2-2
• Oct 30/17 2-3-2-3
• Dec 12/17 2-1-2-3
• Jul 6/18 2-2-2-2-4
• Oct 2/18 1-1-2-3-4

With modern technology, we can explore the site from the comfort of home, without wandering about on private property or booking a VIA ticket! A Googlemaps view shows the CN main at left with Whitby south service track, the lead at centre and the facility's five spurs and silos at right. The covered hopper car unloading tracks from bottom to top in the image below (west to east):

• WS34 - 250' added <2014
• WS32 - 393'
• WS31 - 570'
• WS30 lead - 1220'
• WS33 - 710'

CN 1329 was in charge of No 546 at Whitby in September, 1986 (below) including three covered hoppers for DuPont. The switcher appears to be on the switch to the DuPont facility, with the photo taken looking east near the South Blair Street level crossing. The crossing was replaced with a multi-track underpass begun in 2014-15 and completed in 2016.

CN 1232 has a Sclair covered hopper in tow at Pickering, about seven miles to the west, circa 1980 (below - kindly shared by Mike Lindsay). Perhaps this is a transfer heading to Don Yard.

Some significant dates in this facility's history:

• 1958 - construction of the DuPont of Canada plant begins.
• 1981 - $3 million expansion for polyethylene film production.
• 1983 - $2 million expansion for a new plastic film line.
• 1984 - 43,000 sq.ft. warehouse was added on the plant's 25th anniversary. Employment had grown from an initial 75 to 300, with 14 original employees still on staff.
• 1986 - $4 million expansion included a packaging technical centre, offices and laboratories.
• 1987 - the plant's footprint was 215,000 square feet.
• 1994 - DuPont's Sclair technology and polyethylene business was acquired by Novacor, though the Whitby plant was not part of the deal.
• 2001 - the Whitby operation is rebranded Enhance Packaging Technologies Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of DuPont Canada producing performance films.
• 2002 - Enhance Packaging Technologies acquired US-based bag-in-box manufacturer Liqui-box, thereafter a DuPont Canada company Liqui-Box Canada, Inc.
• 2007 - DuPont Liquid Packaging Systems sold the Whitby facility to South Carolina-based Exopack Performance Films. At the time of sale, Sclairfilm and Dartek were the main product lines and employment stood at 129. Exopack continued to supply Liqui-Box with products from Whitby.
• 2013 - Exopack is rebranded as Coveris High Performance Packaging.
• 2018 - the age of consolidation sees Montreal-based Transcontinental Packaging acquire Coveris, owner of 21 packaging plants, with Whitby its sole Canadian property employing 140.

The photographer just missed the CN spurs, just to the left of this 1964 photo :

Before and after Metrolinx views of South Blair Street at CN:

Lots o' links:

• Throwback! This 2018 photo taken at Whitby, ironically shows a Sclair car on CN No 376, likely destined for Brockville, not Whitby.
• CN 4601 at the South Blair Street crossing in 1988, with the DuPont lead to right.
• There are several albums of 2014-15 photos posted to Metrolinx' Flickr page, the first one showing the closing up of the South Blair Street level crossing.
• A pre-overpass 2010 Thomas Blampied photo showing the switch to the DuPont lead.

Running extra:

A fascinating blog post about this long-forgotten stamp collection reads like a thriller! The author takes us through his family history, wartime service, and back to the true value of this long-lost philatelic find.

                                             

Best wishes to CN engineer and loyal Trackside Treasure reader Steve Lucas as he makes his last trip of a 35-year career with CN and VIA this weekend. Steve put it well when he posted, "Money + not working for it can = happiness."

Stop the presses! Rapido Trains Inc. is releasing a new run of VIA coaches, including the "D&H" scheme. Stop stopping the presses! Rapido has released their final pre-production sample of the CPR D-10. All that's missing is the "Spirit of Sir John A." lettering. Stop talking about nothing about Rapido! But first, read this Q&A where Jason admits that Kingston is his greatest modelling success! (Fortunately, the necessary amputation of part of the completed model is not mentioned!)

CN Kingston Sub Daily Freights and Times

What train is that? Who cares? These are two questions often asked by railfans. There are some of us who want to know all the details. There are others content to watch or photograph the passing trains. I have asked both questions during my years of railfanning. 

I'm currently in the 'what train is that?' camp and have been since the 1990's, though my brother was in this camp in the 1980's when, armed with a scanner and spending time trackside, he could confirm to me that the passing train was 393 or 318. 

KEEPING CURRENT - WHAT TRAIN IS THAT?

That's the reason I maintain a current list of  CN Kingston Subdivision Daily Freights and Times (above) in the right sidebar of this blog, and have done so since its inception. It's sort of a public service. It's nice to know how many trains traverse a given line we might want to railfan. Fortunately, the line that passes near here maintains a healthy number of trains, is in no danger of abandonment, and just might be one of the busiest stretches of track in the Canadian system. Oh, that's CN No 149 approaching Belleville (top photo).

CN'S PASSENGER TRAIN NUMBERING

CN has been through various iterations of train nomenclature in its various eras and management eras. Passenger trains used to be very logically numbered: 20-series Montreal-Quebec, 30-series Monreal-Ottawa, 40-series Ottawa-Toronto, 50- and 60-series Montreal-Toronto, and 70- and 80-series Southwestern Ontario. Within each series, the lowest-numbered train departed earliest in the day. It made sense! Now, VIA has completely bunged it up by running trains Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto, sticking 6's in front of some numbers (formerly used to denote Railiner services) and running J-trains combining two symbols. 

CN'S FREIGHT TRAIN NUMBERING

If you've read your Bytown Railway Society Canadian Trackside Guide (abbreviated CTSG by most, although the CTG title is a registered mark!), you can see that CN had a fairly robust numbering system for its freight trains. CN doesn't publicize this information, so it's up to observant railfans to document and keep this information current in various forms. 

100-series high priority, 200-series priority, 300-series manifest, 400-series regional, 500-series road switcher, then unit trains in the 700- and 800-series. Recently, they've used letters to further delineat train numbers such as M for Manifest, L for local, Q for intermodal (now adding Z - what is this, the Santa Fe?), U or G for unit, X for extra and even P for passenger (below). (How can you give a freight train number to a passenger train?) The Q versus Z nomenclature for intermodals has sparked some lively debate, especially among the younger generations of railfans. The entire CN train symbol is an alphabet soup including type of train, number, originating region, start per day, and date of origin, but that's another post for another blog.

On Trackside Treasure, you'll notice that I stick with an earlier format for train numbers that goes back to the UCOR/train order days. CN No 305 Eng 2296 as an example. Though this format used to be heard on the radio, most trains are identified by rail traffic controllers by their leading locomotive number now, or by the alphabet soup symbol when dealing with written documents. Crews still use the train numbers occasionally! It all depends who's talking.

WHO CARES?

So what does it all mean? Well, somewhere up in the ivory tower of CN headquarters, there are people who design services, or as CN calls it on their webpage, "We Connect the Dots" which I suppose means map dots. They "innovate, create and implement solutions" for their customers, broken down to four steps for customers: Plan, Ship, Trace and Pay. Obviously, a train doesn't leave a terminal with one car like a taxi with a fare aboard. There are cutoff times and train blocking instructions that guide how each train is built, where it runs, and when. CN was one of the first to implement Precision Scheduled Railroading, under the Tellier and Harrison management eras. I'm not going into PSR, those mens' legacies or the relative success of either, because that's another post for another blog.

CN's customers don't necessarily care which train their cars are on. They just want to know when they're getting cars, when they're getting lifted, when they're getting to their destination, and when they're getting more cars.

All we need to know is that there are reliable, predictable train pairs operating across the CN system because cars go empty one way, loaded the other way. So, each city pair needs two trains. It's not good enough for a railfan to ask, "How many trains go through Kingston each day?", and be told, "Well, that all depends...". That's a facile answer that skips over the true, detailed answer. 

It's safe to say there are ten pairs of trains operating each day over the CN Kingston Sub. Every day. Yes, we can add in extra 'sections' of a given train, long-distance unit trains that happen to pass by on a given day, or special moves like maintenance, dimensional, and who knows what else?

CN'S CURRENT OPERATING SCHEME FOR THE KINGSTON SUB

CN has actually become more boring over time when it comes to nimble, creative operations for its Kingston Sub trains. When I first started tracing cars in the late-1990's, prior to a widespread 1998 reorganization, CN had some neat online operations. CN No 335 (Garneau, QC to Buffalo, NY Frontier Yard) would swap blocks with Joffre, QC-Toronto No 361 at Belleville, taking some of the latter train's cars directly to the US via Niagara Falls, bypassing Toronto. Also in Belleville yard, CN No 149 would also stop to lift a block of hot metal traffic from CN No 369. So some trains would bypass Montreal Taschereau and Toronto MacMillan hump yards. Not any more. Boring. 

The other interesting information available from car tracing was discovering the service profile for each train. Except for trains that are entirely classified (I think 306 to Moncton may be one) at their destination, each train has predictable blocks built in for their online journeys. Online switching on head-end, through cars at tail-end.

Today, most manifest freights enter CN's Montreal and Toronto yards, in Montreal some only swap blocks. Most entering Toronto are broken down and rebuilt for subsequent trains to destinations south, north or west. CN No 395 (Monteal-Chicago BNSF Cicero Yard) used to be chock-full of Burlington Northern cars going straight through to Chicago. These days, with so many shipper-leased, not railway-owned cars, it's quite hard to superficially predict where those cars are coming from or heading to!

Hotter intermodal trains often bypass Toronto, coming direct from Western Canada and sometimes refuelling or recrewing along the Kingston Sub. Cuts of grain and potash traffic are sometimes tacked on (above), a practice CN seems to have learned from the ever-thrifty CP. It's all about decreasing the operating ratio (expenses divided by revenue) and providing profits to shareholders. 

SO REALLY, WHAT TRAIN IS THAT?

Railfans often wonder how they can find out about individual trains. Again, the facile answer is, "Listen to your scanner, read the Trackside Guide, you'll get it". Very unhelpful. A better answer might be to look for what I'd call key cars on a given train. For instance:

• Irving Lumber loads moving west are likely 305
• long strings of packaged lumber and TBOX's are likely 369
• intermodal trains without CN or domestic containers are likely 148/149 (below)
• Distributed Power units on the tail-end of trains are usually trains originating in Western Canada.

When we travelled on the Canadian from Toronto-Edmonton in 2019, I was struck not only by the huge number of trains we met west of Winnipeg, but the look-alike nature of many of them. Cuts of lumber, sand hoppers, tanks. Next train, the same. How could I possibly tell what train that was? And who cared?

Fortunately, CN maintains the highest percentage of carload freight among the Class I's, much more than the mostly-intermodal Western US railroads. If you like boxcars, you'll love CN, especially here. Sure, there are huge amounts of covered hoppers and tankcars heading to and from Montreal (like CN No 376, below), the south shore of the St Lawrence, and places like Saint John. Power is largely interchangeable, though the number and placement of locomotives may denote a particular train.

I would suggest documenting (no surprise there!) what you see and piecing together trends and patterns in what you see. Freight schedules may vary plus-or-minus a few hours on those 10 train-pairs from day to day. Late departures, work en route, unforeseen incidents and recrewing can delay trains. But they will eventually pass by. Perhaps just after you get in your vehicle, go home, and close the front door behind you!

That's where this guide will come in handy to know the possibilities of what trains you're seeing here. I should note that I won't be updating this list in this post. It's just a snapshot as of July, 2022. CN has recently been adding some new intermodal symbols, even using their Valleyfield terminal to serve Montreal. Check the sidebar for my periodically-updated daily freights list.

**147 Montreal-Chicago Intermodal Overflow/Autoracks 1100

**271 Montreal-Flint 0930

**Not currently operating

*Current as of Jul. 2022

*Times approximate and subject to change

*Times OS at Kingston

105 Montreal-Vancouver 0600

106 Vancouver-Montreal Variable

108 Vancouver-Montreal Variable

109 Montreal-Vancouver twice weekly Variable

120 Toronto-Halifax 0100

121 Halifax-Toronto 0500

122 NEW Chicago-Halifax Intermodal xxxx

123 NEW Halifax-Chicago : Halifax to US and Montreal Intermodal + Auto Traffic West of Mtl xxxx

148 Chicago-Montreal 2200

149 Montreal-Chicago 0930

185 Montreal-Prince Rupert

186 Prince Rupert-Montreal

305 Moncton-Toronto 0900

306 Toronto-Moncton 2000

309 Joffre-Toronto As Needed 0140

310 Toronto-Joffre As Needed 2330

321 Southwark-Toronto 2130

322 Toronto-Southwark/Joffre 1900

368 Toronto-Montreal 1500

369 Montreal-Toronto 1200

371 Montreal-Toronto 1100

372 Toronto-Montreal 2230

373 Montreal-Toronto 0500

376 Toronto-Riviere des Prairies 1100

377 Riviere des Prairies-Toronto 1900

516 Toronto-Brockville As Needed

517 Brockville - Toronto As Needed

518 Belleville-Kingston 1000EB/1300WB

730 Potash Saskatoon-Saint John Variable

731 Saint John-Saskatoon Variable

874 Grain Saskatoon-Limoilou Variable

875 Limoilou-Saskatoon Variable

HAVING SAID THAT, THE DISCLAIMER

You'll notice that there is lots of wiggle room in what I've posted. There are asterisks and 'variable', for instance. As my Dad used to tell me, factories are often closed on weekends, so early-week trains are usually shorter and late-week trains usually longer. Many locals that collect those factories' cars don't operate on weekends (like CN No 519 at Mi 179, above). Unit trains of potash, grain or intermodal that cross this country can be delayed in many different provinces, so the schedules once they come east into Ontario are anybody's guess.

As I've already mentioned, this is a dynamic operational environment, where lots of things can and do go wrong, causing delays. Nobody should think therefore, that just because I post that CN No 369 passing at noon, doesn't mean that even 50% of the time, that is reliable. Or it might be. 

Just get trackside and see what comes along! That's the fun of railfanning, unless you hope to pursue Precision Scheduled Railfanning!

Running extra...

After a long reign of devotion and service...

...the Queen is dead. Long live the King.

Ex-CP Smooth-Side Cars Transferred to VIA

TRANSFERRED TO VIA IN 1978

A number of ex-CP coaches and head-end cars were transferred to VIA at the end of September, 1978. While some saw VIA service, most languished in coach yards, many in Montreal's CP Glen Yard. Cynics suggest that CP was cleaning out its yards while getting money from VIA Rail, knowing that these cars were not ever likely to see VIA service due to their age and condition. Some never turned a wheel for VIA.

CP's SMOOTH-SIDE FLEET

Built as a response to post-war passenger traffic and the generally downtrodden state of many passenger cars following the busy wartime period, two groups of 'curved-side' coaches were commissioned by CP:

• CP 2220-2234 built by National Steel Car, Hamilton 1947-48, fitted out by CP's Angus Shops.
• CP 2235-2298 built by Canadian Car & Foundry, Montreal 1949-50.

While there are many references to the unique, curved-side design of these welded steel cars, I use the term smooth-side to differentiate them from the Budd 'Canadian' stainless-steel 100-series coaches. Since none of the NSC cars went to VIA, I'm referring to the CC&F cars throughout this post. (The 2200's are not to be confused with CPs earlier 2100-series cars built in the 1930's and their smaller windows.)

Both classes were very similar, at a length over sills of 77' 11 1/2", overall length of 83' 10 1/2", with 68 seats - 52 in the main room and 16 in a smoking section. Trucks were four-wheel Commonwealth design by General Steel Castings Corp. of Eddystone, PA. Both builders delivered the cars in overall tuscan red, with yellow-gold CANADIAN PACIFIC lettering near the black roofline. The CC&F cars were equipped with mechanical refrigeration and a modified truck design.

IN CP SERVICE

The cars saw varied service, such as on the Atlantic Limited, and overflow service (top photo - Calgary) on the Canadian between Calgary and Vancouver. An online auction site photo of No 2 (above) taken at Field in 1978 shows a 2200-series coach behind the baggage-dorm. During holiday travel periods, the cars could be added to the Atlantic Limited, or replaced Dayliners on Calgary-Edmonton trains. They were also used on short-haul trains that still existed before the advent of VIA, such as Montreal-Ottawa*. There are many accounts of the 2200-series cars giving passengers a smooth, comfortable ride. 

Thirteen of the cars were later repainted to overall aluminum with yellow-gold CANADIAN PACIFIC lettering on a tuscan red letterboard. In the CP Rail era, the letterboard was painted Action Red, with CP Rail lettering and small multimark. (CP's heavyweight fleet had previously passed into other services by 1972, such as rules cars or Service cars.)

DISPOSITION AFTER CP

In light of declining passenger traffic, 19 cars were leased to CN for their busy Expo 67 period from June, 1966 to November, 1967. CP lent 2210, 2236, 2258, 2266, 2285 and 2298 to the Government of Canada for use on the Confederation Train. Twenty-one cars were sold to Hawker-Siddeley in 1967-68, refurbished for NdeM in Mexico. Other cars were sold to Ontario Northland in 1968 (2), Algoma Central thence Wisconsin Central in 1972-73 (13), the Government of British Columbia for museum service in 1973 (4), BC Rail in 1973-74 for tourist train service (12), and the Quebec Cartier Railway in 1972 and 1976 (4).

IN VIA SERVICE

As for the remaining coaches that went to VIA - some reports state that these ex-CP smooth-side cars were all retired by November, 1978 although photos show that some must have been reactivated, since coaches were still in use in 1979. It would appear that time frame was actually two years, not two months! There were concerns about compatibility and no doubt streamlining the polyglot fleet that VIA inherited from CP, and mostly CN. Photos of the ex-CP head-end cars in service are rare**, likely because if there was one thing that VIA never seemed short of, it was baggage cars. At various times, ex-CN baggages were leased to Amtrak, stored, and usually the last ex-CN car type to receive VIA blue & yellow paint.

Interestingly, the Budd 'Canadian' cars that VIA obtained from CP as part of the same transfer continue to be the backbone of VIA's intercity and long-distance fleet some 45 years hence. Most photos of the smooth-side cars in service are no later than 1979 and I don't recall any seeing Montreal-Toronto Corridor service. 

Eric May kindly shared a photo taken by his brother Bruce in July, 1979 showing VIA No 2 arriving Calgary. Behind VIA 1416, two CP Rail Geeps, an ex-CN baggage and I-series 24-roomette is a CP 2200 followed by a VIA-painted stainless steel coach and Action Red Skyline:

The ex-CP smooth-side cars were eventually scrapped or sold to other railways. Ex-CP Rail baggage 2720, showing remnants of at least two paint schemes, languishes in Winnipeg at the bumper of an East Yard coach track, with ex-CN Sceneramic Fraser (Brian Schuff photo):

DISPOSITION AFTER VIA

I've summarized all the information I could find on the ex-CP smooth-side cars in their transition from CP to VIA, as well as their eventual disposition, in the table below. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a table is worth ten times that! The table includes colour of stripe, sold status, storage status and scrap dates. It also lists a few known CP baggage cars that were not sold to VIA, as well as a few odd head-end cars that were transferred but rarely if ever photographed:

Bruce Chapman made a trip to the CP Glen Yard in Westmount to photograph languishing ex-CP cars that had been sold to VIA. In a variety of CPR/CP Rail colours, these cars were resting and rusting, seemingly forgotten, and most decidedly not in VIA service. Bruce's photos are from 1983:

Ex-CP 2734 its CANADIAN PACIFIC lettering seemingly removed (above) and CP Rail-lettered 2732 (below) coupled to CP Rail Motive Power Test car:

Ex-CP 2424, still with maroon stripe. The central position of the doors meant a very long distance between CANADIAN an PACIFIC. CP Spans the World and spans the letterboard, too:

Unreadable-numbered car in CP Rail colours:

Lots o' links:

• A Montreal-Labelle fall foliage excursion in September, 1975
• railpictures.net photo of VIA No 2 with a red-striped smooth-side coach at North Bay in September, 1979.
• CP 2245 in overall aluminum.
  
• A rather bedraggled CP 2247 with a multimarked companion.
• What appears to be CP 2256 in CP Rail colours, perhaps early 1970's, actually.
  
• CP 2260 in CP Rail colours at Vancouver, 1977 along with CP 2293.
• Rapido Trains Inc. had not taken on production of the round-side cars. I do have a second-hand HO scale 2200-series car in the tuscan scheme, based on the CN/VIA CC&F prototype (above) produced about 10 years ago..
• CP 2424 in in 1976 still with tuscan letterboard, and 2722 in CP Rail colours.

In print:

• * A Robert Sandusky photo in Chris Greenlaw's excellent MBI book on VIA Rail shows VIA 1432 still in CP Rail paint pulling three similarly-painted 2200's at Lachute, QC. The caption states that No 132 on the North Shore route was normally a Dayliner, but this smooth-side equipment was protecting the service when photographed on March 24, 1979.
• ** Tom Nelligan's VIA Rail Canada: The first five years includes a photo of VIA No 1 captioned April 1981, with an ex-CP baggage in the consist.

Photos in this post kindly shared by Bruce Chapman unless otherwise indicated. Top photo taken by D.L. Zeutschel, kindly shared by Brian Schuff.

Running extra...

 

On display: months after I was born, CPR 5433 was put on display in Chapleau. This photo set portrays some of the day's events for posterity.

On the block: speaking of CP relics, crane 414222 is in Milwaukee, offered for sale by the company. The crane still has its inspection certificate from Pankratz Engineering in Winnipeg:

On the cowcatcher: our grandson took in a lunch downtown with us, plus a visit to the Pumphouse Museum's 'On The Move' exhibit and a trip to the toy store. Though we did not walk out with his choice, a $155 dumptruck/float trailer/backhoe set, he did choose two smaller trucks for himself and two for his brother, at a third of the price!