14 June 2004 CPR Toronto Yard:  Fit at 40 When CPR multi-level CP 550216 rolled over the hump crest to open the CPR's $15 million, 432-acre Toronto Yard on 16 Jun 1964, it ushered in a new era in freight transportation in Canada.   To observe that milestone in the history of the CPR and Canadian transportation, the event is going to be recreated this Wednesday, 16 Jun 2004 as part of the 40th anniversary celebration being staged at Toronto Yard for all interested CPR employees and pensioners. The event kicks off at 09:00 in the parking lot of the General Yard Office, next to the hump, with coffee and donuts for the guests and an extensive display of historical photographs and railway artifacts. As well, locomotive CP 8208 will be parked on Track FL3, just as it was on opening day. Limited humping will occur until 10:00 when Southern Ontario Service Area manager Chris Carroll will welcome the guests and set the stage for the recreation of the opening ceremony. An open bi-level autorack - similar to the one that broke the banner back in 1964 - will be released from the hump crest to roll down into the classification yard. The hump will be shut down from 10:30 to 12:00 to allow guests to socialize and inspect the hump facilities.   Built on a brand new "greenfield" site and using leading edge technology, Toronto Yard was the most advanced freight classification facility in the world back in 1964. This advanced technology - and the vast amount of lighting used to provide a safe and efficient round-the-clock working environment - caused CPR employees to refer to it as Disneyland. With its high-tech systems for receiving, classifying and dispatching trains to and from points all across the CPR's transcontinental system, as well as the novel one-spot system for car maintenance, use of computers and television systems for car control, and use of an electronic rolling scale to weigh cars, Toronto Yard put a whole new face on railroading in southern Ontario. It impressed shippers, the public and employees alike. And it earned the company newspaper headlines as a bold, business-savvy move to fight back against other forms of transportation that were being given an advantage over the railways in the 1960s through government funding of the infrastructure they required.   Today, Toronto Yard is an even more important part of the CPR's eastern operations than when it opened. It is at the heart of our efforts to be the freight transportation provider of choice in eastern Canada, the northeastern U.S. and across the whole continent.   To outsiders, the yard may look just about the same as it did when it went into service, but it is constantly changing to keep pace with the needs of our customers. The job of building an even better Toronto Yard has never ended. In fact, more money has been invested in technological and capacity upgrading over the last 40 years than was spent to build the yard in the first place. These improvements have converted it from a classification yard designed for 40-foot carload traffic in the '60s to a 21st century facility meeting the multiple demands for carload, automotive, bulk and intermodal traffic moving in rolling stock of weights, lengths and configurations that weren't even dreamed of 40 years ago.   The employees of the CPR's Southern Ontario Service Area have witnessed and been at the heart of all these changes at Toronto Yard. These have included switching from hand, lamp and intercom methods of signalling to the use of lightweight portable radios for communication, construction of the new auto compound in the 1970s, computerization and centralization of car control functions, the conversion to fully computerized and radio-controlled hump operations in the early 1980s, introduction of Remote Locomotive Control Systems, the addition of the Group Six class tracks in the late 1980s, construction of a new Expressway Terminal, and even the recent demolition of the now-redundant water tower at the Diesel Shop. These are all visible signs of how Toronto Yard has advanced and grown to keep pace with the North American and global economies.   A facility that is not only functioning - but functioning even better and more efficiently at 40 - is a rarity in today's business world. It is thanks to the ingenuity and dedication of employees from all departments of the Canadian Pacific Railway, who designed, built, worked and who work here today that it has happened at Toronto Yard. That's something in which we can all take pride as we mark the yard's 40th birthday on 16 Jun 2004.   The history, the operation and the people of Toronto Yard will all be the subject of a feature article to be published in an upcoming issue of Momentum and posted on our RailTown intranet website. Toronto Yard will also be featured in an article on hump yard technology in the Toronto Star's @Biz section on Monday, 21 Jun 2004. Watch for both!