Vol. 17 No. 2
February, 1987
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Stay Safe in 87
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Heritage Park a
"Great" Folk Museum
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Omer Lavallee
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At the Head-End: Bill Henderson (left) and Jack Hodges
can be
seen operating locomotives on the park's intramural railway.
A number of years ago, Calgary's Heritage Park Society, which operates
what I consider to be one of Canada's really great folk museums, did me the honour of electing me to special
membership. This appointment has been continued ever since.
I knew that the "crunch" would come this year because many of these honorary appointments lapse when one
retires.
I received the customary invitation to the annual meeting and dinner on 25 Sep 1986, which, as usual,
was held in the Canmore Opera House at the park.
Compliment From Eastern City Slicker
In the course of the proceedings, I was pleasantly surprised to be named for another year to special membership
status. In return, I pledged to continue my periodical visits to, and co-operation with, the park, whose
achievements I admire very much. From an "eastern city slicker", that is a compliment indeed.
Thanks to tourists in transit from the East to and from Expo 86, the park recorded an increase in attendance for 1986,
reversing a downward trend which accompanied the economic reverses in the West.
My special interest, of course, is the park's intramural railway, whose main line is a little more than a kilometre
in length, and possesses no less than four former CP Rail stations.
These structures - from Shepard, Midnapore, and Laggan (now called Lake Louise), all in Alberta - are spaced at equal
intervals along the main line. A fourth structure, a so-called "portable station" from Bowell,
Alberta, is placed beside the wye.
Concealed Diesel Engine
Motive power is supplied by two 0-6-0 tender-type steam locomotives (originally built for
the U.S. Army), as well as by a third 0-6-0, a former CPR U2 class switcher, whose expired firebox and
boiler were altered to conceal a diesel engine when the park acquired it about 20 years ago. Latterly, this
locomotive worked for Canmore Mines Limited where it bore the road number 3.
The rolling stock is interesting and varied. Passengers are carried in several open-platformed day
coaches, each completely rebuilt by the park, which were acquired in the 1960s from the Morrissey, Fernie &
Michel Railway in Crowsnest Pass in southern British Columbia. At least one of them was built and used by the
Pennsylvania Railroad in the 1880s. "Pennsy" markings came to light when the car was being rebuilt a few
years ago.
The latest addition to the park railway's structure is a six-stall standard CPR brick roundhouse, built
in the early 1980s. This provides facilities for the operating locomotives, as well as four tracks of exhibit space.
In one of these is the park's - and one of Canada's - most significant railway historical exhibits, Canadian Pacific
Official car No. 76 which was present at the driving of the Last Spike in Eagle Pass, B.C. on 7 Nov 1885.
Last Spike
Last year, centenarian-plus No. 76 was borrowed from the park and moved west on its own wheels to
participate in the Last Spike centennial celebrations.
Day-to-day operations of the railway are in charge of Lorain Lounsberry, who, at least from the point of
view of "yer humble scribe" (a bachelor), must be the most charming "division superintendent" in
Canada.
Lorain's office is upstairs in Midnapore station. Now if we can only persuade her to wear a rolled-rim
homburg hat and smoke a cigar while she "chews out" the crew.
Yes, this IS a plug for Heritage Park. Readers who have never been there don't know what they're missing.
( Mr. Lavallee was Canadian Pacific's Corporate Historian and Archivist. )
This CP Rail News article is
copyright 1987 by Canadian Pacific Railway and is reprinted here with their
permission. All photographs, logos, and trademarks are the property of the Canadian
Pacific Railway Company.
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