October - 1947

Our Display Among the
Big Attractions at CNE

"Sleepy Hollow" Chair Exhibit Draws Thousands
 

An audience participation show with more than three quarters of a million participants briefly describes the Company exhibit at Toronto's Canadian National Exhibition which closed 6 Sep 1947 after two weeks of record breaking activity. One of the biggest attractions among the thousands of exhibits turned out to be the section of a "Sleepy Hollow" chair coach which formed part of the Company's showing of rail, steamship, hotel, communications, air lines, and express facilities.

Every day more patrons tried out the luxury of the new chairs than the total number of volunteers which Dr. E.A. Hooton of Harvard University, the famed anthropologist, used in his research when designing the seats, and he used more than 3,000.

Adding to the realism that the car was on rails travelling through the countryside, beautiful painted scenery flowed smoothly past windows of the new extra-long design. A porter was on hand at all times to demonstrate the chairs and keep the display clean and tidy.

The chair car section was given a run for popularity by showings of Company motion pictures in color. The series, running an hour and 15 minutes, covered Canada from coast to coast and included a special five minute newsreel short of the arrival of the Empress of Canada.
 

Entering the exhibit the spectator was impressed by the sight of the front of a large model locomotive of the 2800 class, which appeared to be looming at him from the mouth of a tunnel. The model was the one built to scale at Angus Shops, Montreal, for the T. Eaton Company store in Winnipeg. Its driving wheels turned smoothly in the glass enclosed space and it drew many spectators.

On the opposite side of the exhibit to the Sleepy Hollow chairs was a panorama display of the Empress of Canada sailing along the St. Lawrence route to the British Isles. Here the beautifully designed Empress model lifted slowly to the swells of a realistic canvas sea while by her stately sides sailed ships of the C.P.S.S. fleet, the hard-working Beaver cargo liners.

Set into recesses along the walls of natural-finish Canadian birch were attractive translite pictures, whose exquisite colorings were brought into prominent display by the lights behind.

An information office with teletype machines carrying press-radio news and Dow Jones service completed the room. It was backed by a map of Canada showing Company Air Lines in transparent plastic. Flanking the office were recesses containing models of aircraft used by the Air Lines, Hotel and rail publications were kept in quantity for the public who took away more than 50,000 of them.

The immense amount of planning which went into the exhibit was amply repaid by the great amount of commendation it received during the 14 days of the exhibition.

The exhibit was arranged by E.T. Noltie, Director of the. C.P.R.'s display division, design and art work by Jamesy Crqckart, and constructed under the direction of William Norman shop foreman of the display division.

Unfortunately, the remainder of article was missing.

This Spanner article is copyright 1947 by Canadian Pacific Kansas City and is reprinted here with their permission. All photographs, logos, and trademarks are the property of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company.