CPR Set-off Siding - Employee News

VOLUME 4
MAY 1966
No. 4

$4 Million Expenditure for Improvements
to Company's Empress Hotel at Victoria

VICTORIA - Centre of this city's social activities and busy tourist and convention attraction, the world-renowned Empress Hotel here is to receive a $4 million refurbishing over the next four-year period. Target date for completion of the work, which is to include rewiring of the building's main wing, is December 1969. Discussions between officials of Canadian Pacific Hotels Ltd., and Victoria city fathers may lead to the establishment of a civic and convention centre on Empress Hotel grounds.

VICTORIA - Canadian Pacific will spend in excess of $4 million over the next four years in refurbishing the main wing of the Empress Hotel. Announcement of the project was made by Victoria Mayor A.W. Toone to a gathering which included Company hotel and engineering officials and general contracting heads.

Mayor Toone, who has worked in close concert with Canadian Pacific and its many consultants studying the Empress Hotel, said it was a memorable day for the city. Work would begin, he said, as soon as the heavy 1966 tourist season was concluded. Target date for completion of the work is December, 1969.

Victoria's chief executive officer hailed the decision by Canadian Pacific as an important event in the life of every resident of the B.C. capital city. He said they would reap benefits from the drawing power of one of the world's renowned hotels.

E.C. (Pat) Fitt of Montreal, vice-president and general manager of Canadian Pacific Hotels Ltd., who was present to explain details of the work program, said the first big undertaking would be to change the wiring in the main wing and install alternating current. Cost of this project alone would be more than $1 million and should be completed for the spring of 1967, in time for heavy convention and tourist traffic business.

Only minor structural changes in the building will be necessary.

Mr. Fitt also said that Canadian Pacific Hotels Ltd., would welcome discussions with the city regarding a site for a convention centre on the grounds of the Empress Hotel.

He agreed that such a centre would be a decided asset to Victoria but warned that it was not economically sound for private enterprise to launch such a venture alone.

Mr. Fitt lauded the city for following the lead of other British Columbia cities, such as Vernon and Penticton, in considering establishment of a civic centre.

"Every citizen, every hotel, and every business benefits, but I feel everyone here will agree that such an undertaking is an expensive one to build, maintain, and operate," Mr. Fitt said.

Alco 3,000 HP Diesels in Stiff Rockies Test

On the Wrong Track? - Those are two Union Pacific diesels and that really is Banff, Alberta. Canadian Pacific is testing these newly designed 3,000-h.p. locomotives in the Canadian Rockies with a view to improving operating facilities between the Prairies and West Coast where traffic has doubled in the past six years. The new engines will go to Union Pacific after CP tests have been completed.

CALGARY - Newly-designed 3,000 horsepower Alco diesel locomotives have been undergoing operational tests by the Company in rigorous mountain railroading areas of the Canadian Rockies.

S.M. Gossage of Montreal, Vice-President of the Company, and Senior Regional Vice-President J.N. Fraine of Vancouver, who accompanied initial tests, said the units proved their versatility in an area where tonnage hauled by Canadian Pacific freight trains has more than doubled in the past six years.

Tremendous increases in sulphur and potash production in the Canadian prairies, plus record grain exports and other increases in traffic through the west coast ports have made the Company line through the Rockies a focal area for initiating improvements in rail operations.

The new Alco road switchers, similar in specifications to 32 General Motors 3,000-hp units scheduled for delivery to the Company later this year for use in freight service between Calgary and Vancouver, are being tested for performance in fast freight service and for their capacity in hauling heavy tonnage over challenging mountain grades.

New Telecommunications Facility

MONTREAL - Transmitters for the automatic relay of telegrams churn out perforated "reader tape" at Canadian Pacific Telecommunications relay centre here. Checking the machines is C.J. Colombo (right), head of the company's planning and methods department which designed the electronically-controlled direct switching system. Telecommunications technician J.N. Trahan is at left.

MONTREAL - A $1.5 million direct switching system, enabling telegrams to be sent from office of origin to destination almost instantaneously, has been installed across Canada by Canadian Pacific Telecommunications.

The system, described as the fastest means of telegram transmission in existence, virtually eliminates manual relays and time-consuming handling delays at the company's main relay centres. Electrically-controlled equipment now speeds telegrams non-stop to their destinations.

The new system transmits messages at the rate of 100 words per minute and has reduced terminal-to-terminal transmission time to as little as four minutes.

Designed and installed by Canadian Pacific Telecommunications engineers, direct switching will transmit more than 5,000,000 telegrams a year through some 200 commercial centres across Canada.

At the same time, the system has been made compatible with those of international connecting companies so that messages can be sent to international points with equal dispatch. Δ

This Canadian Pacific Spanner article is copyright 1966 by the Canadian Pacific Railway and is reprinted here with their permission. All logos, and trademarks are the property of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company.