Believe it or not, there are three basic types of railroading:

1.  The junior-size, living-room model where the tracks keep coming apart, to Mother's despair;

2.  The expensive, basement-type setup, fully electrified and under visual as well as signal control, where the amateur dispatcher's error might do nothing more serious than knock over a balsawood building;

3.  And the real, life-sized railway, such as the Canadian Pacific, where a dispatcher operates trains invisible to him with maximum efficiency and safety over hundreds of miles of varied landscape, using signals only.

Canadian Pacific's high international reputation and its ability to provide transportation matching Canada's economic growth depend on proficient work by employees, intelligent management, and proper tools, and of these three, the last stands high in importance.

In World War II Churchill said:  "Give me the tools and I will finish the job.

One of the tools provided the men who operate the Canadian Pacific is efficient signalling for train operating, an item which costs approximately $2.5 million per year to maintain. Some $25 million has been spent by the Company in the last 10 years on construction of new signalling systems, much of it on centralized traffic control. Sometimes called push-button railroading, it is just about the safest type of railway signalling yet devised.

CTC on Canadian Pacific has developed rapidly in the past 10 years, although the first CTC installation by the Company dates back to 1928 with 7.4 miles from Medicine Hat to Dunmore, Alberta, just one year after CTC was first inaugurated anywhere. By 1958 there were 52.1 miles of CTC in operation, mainly in terminal areas. Then, in that year, the major long-distance breakthrough was made with 87 miles on the Belleville subdivision. Today CTC covers nearly 1,700 miles of track.

This year appropriations in excess of $4 million will complete some of the CTC sections already started, bringing the total to 1,964 miles.

Railway signals, after all, are for the sole purpose of providing information to the engineman, so he can run his train safely and efficiently. CTC does that by applying electronics to signalling, giving a dispatcher the next thing to visual control over hundreds of miles of track.

At a central control point a dispatcher sits at a console where a series of lights on a trackage diagram gives him information on every train, signal, and switch in his territory. With the flick of a finger he can control all these and direct one train into a siding as far as 500 miles away while another passes in either direction, giving full protection to all traffic while doing so.

Automatic safeguards make it impossible for him to create dangerous situations by clearing more than one signal at a time, lining up conflicting movements, or attempting to move a train over an open switch. If some other emergency occurs, such as a rail breaking, signals automatically go stop.

Newest CTC installations have a feature whereby signals will continue to operate automatically for safe train operation even after a failure in the remote control portion of the system.

Modern CTC signal protection is a far cry from the day over 150 years ago when a railroad finally obtained two engines and had to do something to keep them from running into each other.

One really early effort was the halfway post between sidings. The first engine to reach it had the right-of-way, the other backed its train into the siding. This led to a few fights, some "dead" heats, and was soon discarded.

Back about 1830, a railroad invented the "highball". As a train left one siding, a ball was hoisted high on a post to warn a lookout at the next siding, so that any opposing train could be held in safety there. But the system was discarded when railroads grew longer and too many lookouts were required.

Timetable railroading was the next development. Trains were scheduled to meet at a certain point (see illustration No. 3) and neither could advance until both had reached that designated point. But trains did not always run on time and serious traffic delays brought an early end to this system.

The first written train order was about 1856 and was the result of a superintendent's impatience. They were operating on the timetable system but the second train was late for the meet. The superintendent wired ahead to the next station to hold the opposing train. He also had to put the instructions in writing before the engineer of his own train would move since this was contrary to all existing rules.

The idea is that under the train-order system trains normally run by timetable schedule unless otherwise ordered by a dispatcher at a central point, who receives a constant stream of information, and who knows his territory, relative speed of trains, and other pertinent factors.

Improving the system, it was decided to run trains 20 minutes apart and before you could say anything they invented automatic block signals. These signals, activated by one train, warn the engineer of a following train as to what is happening ahead and what he should do about it. By the late 1920's, Canadian Pacific had 950 miles of block signals plus hundreds of miles more of other types of signal protection, such as interlocking signals at level crossings.

And that brings us right back to CTC and its many advantages over all previous signal systems.

Construction projects for this year include completion of the Calgary-Vancouver section with building Exshaw to Lake Louise, Taft to Pritchard, and North Bend to Ruby Creek, and completion of the Schreiber division with building from Selim to Current River on the Nipigon subdivision.

This work will bring Canadian Pacific's CTC system to 1,964 miles operated from 13 control consoles, the largest being at Schreiber, Ontario, the busiest at Toronto (two consoles, for the terminals and Belleville subdivision), and the others at Sherbrooke, Montreal, Sudbury, Brandon, Moose Jaw, Calgary (2 consoles), Revelstoke, Coquitlam, and Vancouver.

CTC systems vary in different sections of the country to meet specific local needs but a typical operation is that at Moose Jaw controlling 234 miles of track westward to Swift Current and eastward to Broadview.

Gone are the days of the written train order in this CTC area. Gone are the days when turning a train into a siding meant stopping the train while the head-end trainman opened the switch into the siding, moving the train onto the siding, stopping it again while the rear-end trainman got down to close the switch, and then repeating the whole performance to put the train back on the main line again. All this might have to be done in blizzard conditions.

Instead, all these operations are performed and all signals given by the dispatcher indoors in the control centre in Moose Jaw station.

In effect, CTC gives the dispatcher the equivalent of an operator at each end of every siding or other controlled location without the delays involved in communicating with trains under the train-order system.

The Indian Head-Swift Current subdivisions are divided into sections with 51 field control units housed in bungalows between sidings about 10 miles apart. These metal bungalows, which measure about six feet square, are crammed with relays and signal equipment which make the system work.

They receive the coded electrical impulses and translate them as required for their particular location. Through the use of these units it is possible to operate selectively all the switches and signals in each section. While the system can be used to activate snow-melters at switches, much of this is done across Canada by the use of snow detectors which turn on the heat automatically. Most of them burn propane although some use oil.

In case of trouble on the line, the conductor can advise the dispatcher by telephones which are located at switches, siding ends, and other strategic points.

In this prairie CTC territory there are 20 sidings, each about 7,500 feet long with accommodation for 150 cars. This means that much of the double track has been eliminated, cutting down on maintenance, renewal, and other costs, while providing a smoother, more efficient operating system.

The cost of installing CTC on a normal subdivision of about 130 miles is about $1 million but much of this can be covered by the value of salvage if a second track is being removed.

The benefits remain, a few of them being, increased safety, reduced delays due to meets and passes, increased operating flexibility to handle delays or emergencies, elimination of unnecessary train stops, and better use of personnel.

Estimates are that CTC single track is about 80 percent as efficient in moving traffic as more expensive double track.

Trackage in larger cities presents the greatest problem because of the need for speed in handling of trains, density of traffic, and competition from various trains for every inch of space.

Toronto Terminals, for example, has heavy traffic running through the CTC area at 50 mph to London and Windsor, MacTier and Sudbury, Peterborough, Havelock, and eastward, Belleville and Montreal, two connections with the Toronto Terminal Railway, and dealings with the huge Agincourt yard.

There are 30 miles of double track CTC with each track signalled for movements in both directions. Providing for flexibility, there are 10 sets of double crossovers and four single crossovers.

Indicative of traffic density is the fact that a typical 130-mile subdivision of mainline CTC has 12 sidings and requires 26 electric switch machines and 78 controlled signals. Toronto Terminals CTC, on the other hand, has 76 electric switches and more than 100 controlled signals on 30 miles of double track and 17 miles of single track (including 13 miles of the MacTier subdivision outside the Toronto Terminals division.)

Largest and blessed with the newest safety and efficiency features is the CTC system which, by year's end, will cover all 511.1 main-line miles in the Schreiber division, with control centre at Schreiber.

At 27 feet, Schreiber's is the longest console on the system. Two sets of control buttons mean it can be operated by either one or two dispatchers.

It is not size alone that makes the Schreiber set-up unique. There are several innovations, "firsts" on the Canadian Pacific system, to provide safer and more efficient operation:

Signalled sidings permit faster entering and leaving of sidings.

A local control panel at each siding end lets train crew cut out the dispatcher (with his permission) while crews shunt freight or do other necessary chores.

An automatic clearing system permits trains to proceed under protective signals if something disrupts main CTC code line.

What it all adds up to is that the amazing advances in railroading in the past 20 years will pale into insignificance by the fantastic changes almost certain to occur in the next 20 years. Δ