HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Clinton News Record, 1933-12-21, Page 6GE6'
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TON NEWS -RECORD
THURS., DEC. 21, 1933.:
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By J. E. Dodds in Canadian Magazine
The first Christmas journey was, •
of course, that of the Wise Men from
the East, who brought gifts for the
infant in Bethlehem; and the motive
power used on this occasion was
concealed in the internals of a cam-
el; Many and varied have been
the modes of transportation since
that time; one of the most roman-
tic, perhaps, that of the reindeer
drive from the frozen North, with
Santa Claus' as the lone traveller, he,
like the Magi, bearing gifts to the
child.
Passing aver the oldest known
mode of travel, ";railway" transpor-
tation, and all, the intervening meth-
ods of getting from one place to an-
other, we arrive at last at "railway"
transportation and, so far as this
country is concerned, this brings us
to the Yuletide operation of 'Canada's
first steam railroad, a short stretch
of line 16 miles in length laid be-
tween the villages of Laprairie and
St. Johns in the province of Quebec
and opened in 1836. Many have been
the trials and tribulations of later
railroading days in Canada, but one
can imagine what the modern item -
motive engineer would think of hav-
ing to act as conductor and both feed
and drive a railway engine which
had no cab to protect him from the
weather but which had a voracious
,capacity for wood fed from an open
tender; in reality, a cart on wheels.
But railroad men have a reputation
for"doing the job "with a smile," and
this first conductor -engineer -fireman
demo atrated his pride in the job by
a frock coat, white trousers
and a "topper". He was a distin-
guished ratan in whose care lay the
responsibility of carrying safely the
merry crowd of Christmas travellers
along that ancient route. He finish-
ed the task of the day as only a rail-
road man could do it and set a pace
in that early period of nearly a cen-
tury ago which has been the estab-
lished rule followed by the fraternity
of railroad men in general since
that time.
The frick coat ultimately develop-
ed into a uniform, but beards were
,, all the vogue in the middle of the
last century and both the .engineer
and conductor wore high top hats,
Conductors' and drivers' pay was
small compared with the present, but
for all that, some of the conductors
wore diamonds and owned business
blocks and other real estate. The
Nova Scotia Railway was one of the
first to boast a uniform, for its con-
ductors. It was of blue cloth with
brass buttons, a along frock coat en-
tirely buttoned up in front. The eon -
(Tudor had a black Ieather waist
satchel to hold his ticket punch and
tickets suspended over his shoulder
by a leather strap.
The method of signalling was
naive: The conductor wore a whistle
on a chain around his neck.
As the railways of Canada gradu-
ally extended from the original 16 -
mile stretch of line into more expan-
sive systems, the problem's of rail,
reading over a wider extent of ter-
ritory, and the carrying of ever-in-
creasing loads of both passengers
and freight, presented their own dif-
ficulties, particularly in the winter
season.
Travel in the earlier years was not
always the dignified thing it is to-
daytand sometimes the paying of the
railway fare was only one incident
in the journey. Assisting in the
operating end of the business was
often necessary in order to reach the
desired destination, as many a tray.
eller discovered, particularly at the
Christmas season with its increased.
traffic. One of many; such incidents
comes out of the history of an old
railway a few 'miles from Montreal,
which, doubtless on account of., the
frequent assistance required from its
passengers,• was nicknamed the MO,
P. (Get Off and Push). RaiIroade
and trains in those days were evi-
dently riot always held in high es-
teem by the . early settlers, judging
by the names bestowed, although in
many instances this was probably
due to a feeling of "camaraderie." A
local between St. Thomas and Ham-
ilton, Ontario, was known as "Old
Granny," likely on account of the
fact that it served that territory for
60 years and was one• of the. busiest
trains sof the district. The Ontario,
Simcoe and Huron Company in Up,
per Canada was nicknamed the Oats,
Straw and Hay Railway. On this
line, the Superintendent instructed
the conductor "te take charge of the
train and sell the tickets on the plat-
form, and the baggage master will
collect them on the train"; a rather
large order for these two members
of the crew on a festive occasion, for
it was then no uncommon sight to
see stage coaches bringing from 40
to 50 people to the various stations
en route to enjoy the novelty of a
ride at the Christmas season.
Many are the yarns told about
the woes of railway travel in those
old days, but even the worst exper-
iences had their brighter side. On
one ocacsion, when the Grank Trunk
was passing through a wild section
of Vermont to Portland, Maine, a
moose challenged the Invasion of the
"Puffing Billy" into his domain. Out
of the forest, so the story goes, came
the enormous moose at full speed up
the track, with antlers lowered ready
to meet the on -coming train in dead-
ly combat. The locomotive was de-
railed by the monarch of the woods,
but without much damage, and the
animal was quickly transformed in-
to cuts of venison, a unique oppor-
tunity for a Christmas feast.
The adventures of passengers who
rode in "the cars" in the early days
were varied indeed. The Ontario
traveller in the sixties and seventies
of the last century never knew when
he would be called upon to help re-
plenish the wood supply hr the en-
gine, Sometimes he and his fellow
passengers would find themselves
stalled miles away from a village
owing to engine breakdown or snow
drifts, and the' effort to keep up
steam consumed all the cordwood •in
the engine tender. If no.wood sup-
ply was readily available, the passen-
gers would be handed axes and each
would be expected to do his bit by
felling and splitting trees. I1 the
patrons of the railroad showed any
reluctance in this process of "wood,
ing-up," the engineer and fireman
would settle down for a nap until
such time as thepassengers took a
more favorable view of the matter,
While waiting for repairs, passen-
gers would often pay a social visit to
some lonely pioneer close by 'and a-
wait a blast from the engine whistle.
Shovels and the strong backs of the
male passengers and crew were the
principal snow -fighting equipment.
When a train was stalled in a snow-
drift, out would come the shovels and
the call for (volunteers. If the train
was held up for any length of time,
the problem of food sometimes be-
came acute. It was then the duty
of the brakeman, or someone else of
the crew, to hie himself off in search
of a farmhouse. Here he would bor-
row a sleigh,. and (after waiting un-
til he thought most of the snow -
shovelling was finished) he would
drive back to the train, where the
passengers would lie gathered a-
round the stoves by which the cars
were heated.
It was nothing 'unusual in the sev-
enties for a train to disappear for
two or three days after a big snows
storm. The first duty was to see
that the pumps were working'. The
engines in those days had no injec-
tors and the pumps would not work
when the engine was standing still.
So the wheels would be jacked up, to
be kept 'moving and the pumps work-
ing.
An example of snow difficulties
during train travel at Christmas
time in earlier days is well depicted
by a run over the old Toronto, Gray
and Bruce Railway between Toronto
and Teeswater in the late seventies.
In Frenchman's Cut, near Mount
Forest, the snow had piled so badly
that they could make no 'progress,
neither • forward or backward,' It
snowed intermittently for two days,
the train being almost buried, with
drifts as high as the telegraph poles.
In desperation, the engineer took off
his fur coat' and gave, it to the fire-
man, with the remark, "Better put
this on and keep warm so there
will be one to tell. the tale." For.
tunately, there was .an old taverna
few hundred yards away and the tav,
ern -keeper located the stalled" train,
bringing food to it until" a trail was
broken, ;after which the passengers
were taken away in sleighs. Then
one of the crew made his way to the
village on snowshoes, reporting the
predicament Ito the Superintendent.
More than 300 men were put to work
shovelling snow, which was so deep
that they were forced to work in
three tiers, hoisting the snow from
one level to a higher one until they
had it free of the cut. The track
was cleared• each succeeding hundred
yards, leaving as much snow for the
engine to batter her way through.
At first they tore down fences for
fire -wood and when they had gone
so far afield that they could no long
er keep up their supply because of
the distance they had to carry it,
they had farmers bring loads to
them. Food was procured in the
same way, although the proximity of
the log tavern across the hill made
the sojourn in the drifts less of a
hardship than it might have been,
The General Manager of the road
walked through from Orangeville on
snowshoes with (food and tobacco
for the stranded trainmen, and a
couple of days later got snowed in
himself near Harrison. It was Iater
Iearned from him that seven engines
in all were snowed in, or off the
track, trying to batter through the
drifts and that it was proposed 'te
close down the line for the•winter.
From the time they were snowed
in Frenchman's tut until the time the
train pulled into a clear track 'was a
little less than six weeks, and the
most ironical fact about 'the whole
adventure was that pay day came
when they were in the drift, and in
those days pay day oily come once ev-
ery six months. That is a cash pay
day. The rest of the time the men
werei•paid in coupons redeemable for
cash at the close of each six months'
period: One of these real money days
came after they had been snowed in
for about 'a week.
When the •old Northern Railway
began operations 80 years ago, its
roadbed ran through solid forest all
the, way north to Barrie, Ontario,
trees fairly walling in the track and
relieving trains over a greater part
of this territory from a snowbound
condition which was prevalent In'
more open country. Canadian loco-
motives• in those days 'were all wood -
eaters, being fed with four foot cord-
wood sticks and on this fuel some of
them attained speeds of 35 and 40
miles an hour. Inspectors kept a re-
cord of the wood consumed on the
various runs and r there was some
rivalry to see who could stoke the
engines most economically. Many a
fireman would slip into the tender
more wood than he gave an account
of to the inspector, in order to get a
little ahead of the game and present
a more favorable record. But the
fireman had no leisure for medita-
tion, for the wood was consumed a1,
most as rapidly as it was poked into
the engine's maw and it required deft
handling to produce the best results.
He also had to take his tallow pot
and climb out along the running
board of his engine to the front end,
oil the cylinder on the left side; then
climb across to the opposite cylinder,
and back to the'cab on the driver's
side. That was a real trip "Around
the Horn", especially on a cold and
stormy night when the running board
was covered with ice and snow, and
the old mill rolling along over the
rough road bed of those clays. Com-
mon tallow was then the lubricant
used for the cylinders; today scien-
tifically -prepared cylinder oil is auto-
matically fed to the cylinders.
Christmas Day was always an out,
standing event in the early days of
generous, if sometimes misdirected,
pioneer hospitality. Everyone kept
open house and it was something of
an established rule that each station
agent along the line should provide
some sort of treat for the crews op-
erating trains on •that day. But in
these far-off days there was no
"Rule G" in effect. Train operation
in that easy period was less exact as
.to adherence to schedules than it is
today. The crews visited, with the
agent at each station where hey
stopped at .Christmas time—and they
passed no station by. The consequence
was thattrains often arrived with
crews .showing the effects of the hos-
pitality.
Prom our vantage point of today,
it seems a long way back to the
middle of last century and even lat-
er, when travel was not anything like
it is at present. The crude equip-
ment of those bygone years, the lack
of modern facilities and the employ-
ment of nian's physical power to re-
move the obstacles of nature on the
railway right-of-way, have , given
place to scientific equipment capable
of supplying and maintaining most
efficient service for railway travel.
No longer does the railway expect
volunteer assistance on the part of
its patrons to keep the trains run,
ning and the roadway clear but rath-
er takes pride in catering to the ev-
ery comfort and pleasure of the
traveller.
The family ties of Christmas are
intimately associated with the rail-
way. An important thing about this(
festival is that it lures relatives and
old friends to travel for the purpose
of meeting again, and the greatest
factor about such reunions is the
railway. It brings together• not only
those who dine but also that on
which they dine, for the turkey or
the goose, the roast of Christmas
beef, the plum pudding' and all the
other tasty things that decorate the
table, as well as the Christmas tree
with its ('burden of gifts, are made
available, for the most part, by the
railway. Christmas today without
the' railway• would bb a, tragedy in-
deed for both young and' old alike,,,
not only in Canada -but in•man-y oth,
er lands.' With: a• large percentage,
of the population a- Canada born ov-
erseas, the 'home . for • Ohristmas"'
spirit entails considerabletravelling
facility available and every fat rty is ailabl
v by+
which passengers may be ticketed by
the nearest Canadian National Rail-
ways agent' to a destination in an
other country. Special trains to con-•
nest with the steamers are arranged'
at such times as this, and the travel.
ler finds his wants eared for is ev-
ery way.
As for Canadians, whether they be -
located in Eastern Canada, on the^
great Prairies or beyond the Rockies
Christmas is a season when long
journeys are cheerfully undertaken
for the purpose of spending the Yule,
tide once more with old friends and'
members of the family, and among•
scenes to which- they were acustom- •
ed in earlier years. With the devel..
aliment by the Canadian National'
Railways of special train services,
special excursion fares enabling
their patrons to travel with economy-
to
conomyto their old homes, and other facilit,
les offered by its ,many allied sera
vices, it is not strange that so many,
people take advantage of these.
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Monday will be Christmas Day,
when Christendom will observe the
festival of the nativity of Jesus
Christ. The Church adopted Christ-
mas much later than Epiphany and
before the fifth century there was
no consensus of opinion as to when .
it should come in the calendar,
whether on January 6, March 25 or
December 25. The legal holiday is
of comparatively recent origin and '
still confined largely to Anglo-Sax-
ons and Teutonic countries. As for
many of the time -,honored Christmas -
customs which we now observe, such
as the Christmas tree, the •Christ-
mas card, etc., they, too, can be trac-
ed back only a century or so.
The early Christian had a habit
of trying to make their feast days
correspond in some measure with.
those of the heathen, so that as pros-
elytizing progressed there should"
not be too much conflict and too
great a wrenching away from tra-
dition. The celebration of Christ-
mas combined with an old Druidical'
ceremony. The use of ivy was
known when men paid homage to the
heathen god, Bacchus. The use of
holly is traced to a German and
English custom, it being supposed '
that holly with its prickles and blood -
red berries represented Christ's
crown of thorns, says T. G. Crippen •
in "Christmas and Christmas Lore.""
The use of laurel, rosemary and fir
also have been found to have their•
origins in ancient superstitions.
Mistletoe
Use of the mistletoe, and kissing •
under the mistletoe, seems to be a pe-
culiarly English custom, which may
have had its origin in a pre -Christ-
mas Scandinavian eustom. Then •
warriors held the mistletoe so sacred
that if they met under it they dis
armed and declared a truce until the.
next day. It also is said to have been -
part of a primitive marriage care,
mony.
Christmas carols have been known •
since the 13th, century, when a Fran-
ciscan poet in Italy wrote a good''
many, the custom traveling to
France, Germany and England later,
The earliest known English carol
was published in 1410 by Ritson, and
with its fulaome alliteration is typi-
cal of the early carols:
I saw a sweet, a seemly sight,
A blissful bird, a blossom bright
That mourning made and mirth a. -
mong;
A maiden mother meek and mild
In cradle kept a knave child
That softly slept. ,She sat and sung -
.Lullaby, lulia, below
Maybairn, sleep softly now.
Christmas ran afoul of Puritan'
hostility, particularly in Scotland,'
where to this day it not the festi-
val it is in England. The Puritans •
who "hanged eats on Monday for
killing mice on Sunday" were death •
against Christmas. On December
26,. 1583, the Glasgow; kirk session
(Continued' on page 7)
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