Canadian Pacific Staff Bulletin - July, 1945

First in Canada

This gleaming aluminum sheathed box car, weighing 4,200 pounds less than a steel sheathed car, is the first of its kind in Canada.
 
Turned out at the company's Angus Shops, Montreal, its sides, doors, roof, running board, brake step, and hand brake housing of aluminum, make possible the weight saving, a most important consideration on long trains.
 
The aluminum parts of the wood-lined 50 ton car have been left the natural color of the metal.
 
This car is one of three now getting trials under running conditions.
 
The test trio of aluminum sheated cars is in addition to 747 new box cars finished with the usual steel sheathing as part of an order for 1,150 freight cars placed last August and including 200 overhead refrigerator cars and 200 drop-end gondola cars.
 
Use of aluminum for freight equipment is in line with the Canadian Pacific policy of improving the art of transportation by adapting to its rolling-stock the advances in building technique and the new uses for materials developed under the driving urgency of war.
 
On the locomotive side, for instance, substantial weight savings are being made on 30 engines ordered for this year by substituting aluminum for steel in portions of the cab.
 
In passenger equipment use of aluminum and steel alloys instead of carbon steel is counted on to save 5,000 pounds per car on 50 new lightweight passenger cars in the building program.
 

The year was 1910, men were wearing peg-top pants, women looked impressive in leg o'mutton sleeves, and the first Great War had not cast its shadow on a happy and busy Canada. Lake Louise showed on the time cards as Laggan and was a divisional point. It was at Laggan that this passenger crew posed, in the summer of 1910, in front of their engine, 365. The group were (from left), Fred Gardiner trainman deceased, Fred Lance conductor now pensioned and a resident of Calgary, Sidney J. White fireman who enlisted in August 1914 and died of pleurisy while on active service, and Samuel D. Bowlby train baggageman. Mr. Bowlby is still running out of Calgary.

This Staff Bulletin article is copyright 1945 by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited and is reprinted here with their permission. All photographs, logos, and trademarks are the property of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company.