18 April 2005
Iconic Canadian Train
Turns 50
The last spike completed the
transcontinental Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885. The first Trans-Canada Airlines
jetliner flew coast-to-coast in 1960. In between these two milestones, no transportation
event so mesmerized this country as the launch of its first stainless steel, scenic dome streamliner,
The Canadian, 50 years ago this coming Sunday.
Passenger trains may not elicit the "gee whiz" response they once did, but the technology
that sired The Canadian is still a force to be reckoned with for manufacturer Bombardier. The company
acquired the designs and patents of the Budd Company, creators of The Canadian, in the 1980s.
Stainless steel remains a powerful arrow in Bombardier's quiver as it challenges offshore competitors
for its slice of the multi-billion-dollar global rail passenger equipment pie.
"We manufacture rolling stock in all three of the main materials: stainless, aluminum, and
low-carbon steel," says Paul Larouche, Bombardier's director of marketing and
production planning. "Each has its advantages and you can't say one is better than the other.
It's a matter of customer specifications, but stainless steel devotees are quite adamant in their
choice."
The same pro-stainless factors that stoked the CPR's decision to spend $40 million for
its 173 cars in the 1950s are at play in today's marketplace: strength, longevity, maintenance economy,
and aesthetics. They first coupled up and hurtled into view in a railway revolution that swept the
U.S. In 1934, Philadelphia's Budd Company and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad teamed up
to produce the Zephyr, the world's first diesel-powered, stainless steel streamliner. It
captivated Depression-weary North Americans with its dawn-to-dusk streak
from Denver to Chicago. The CPR's silver streak had the same effect on post-war Canadians
when it was launched simultaneously in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver on 24 Apr 1955.
"The Canadian's arrival was like night and day," says Doug Smith, the Ottawa author of
numerous books on contemporary and historical aspects of railroading.
"We'd been living in the era of steam engines and heavyweight, painted steel cars. We got an
upper crust train in a land of meat and potatoes. The CPR's stainless steel equipment was a national
banner of progress."
Stainless steel rolling stock built by Bombardier and the companies it acquired - including the
legendary Budd and Pullman firms - dominates North America today.
Half of VIA's 420-car fleet is composed of modernized CPR cars plus secondhand U.S.
stainless equipment purchased and rebuilt in the early 1990s. About 80 percent of Amtrak's
1,935-car stable is stainless.
"The CPR's stainless steel equipment
was a national banner of progress"
Doug Smith, railway historian
Pioneered by Germany's Krupp Works for use in cutlery, stainless is an alloy of
low-carbon steel, chrome, and nickel. Its adaptation for railways hinged on Budd's 1933
development of a welding process that wouldn't disturb its aesthetic or physical properties.
Says Larouche, "Stainless requires very specialized production techniques. We have proprietary
robotic welding technologies that maintain its integrity and prevent marring of its finish, which is
one of its hallmarks. Obviously, stainless doesn't require painting and resists graffiti, reducing
maintenance costs."
Fused into this unique image are the fluted or scalloped car-body sides. Larouche says,
that though it is visually pleasing, the fluting is a key element in the design: "It gives
it strength and enables the car sides to carry more of the structural load."
All these factors are still at work in The Canadian. A half-century after the CPR
unleashed it with Hollywood-style fanfare, the stainless cars are each racking up in
excess of 400,000 kilometers annually. VIA won't release the figures, but insiders say operating costs
are lower than newer, non-stainless cars in the fleet.
While this makes the CPR's purchase sound like the wisest of tech-driven business
decisions, there are two views on that. In 1983, the late CPR president and chairman, N.R.
"Buck" Crump, said, "The Canadian, along with the trans-Atlantic White
Empress steamships and the self-propelled Budd rail diesel cars, were the worst
investments I ever made."
But Smith says Crump's self-criticism was too harsh: "He had no way of knowing
how much would be spent on competing highways and air facilities. Technologically, his decision in
favour of stainless steel rolling stock was correct.
"If he hadn't bought it, we might not have transcontinental service now. And just think of the
millions of Canadians and international tourists it's delighted and carried off to spend their
vacation dollars over 50 years."
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