Evening with A CPR Fireman

[Evangelineroute]

This is a little off topic, but I met an interesting gentleman on Sunday evening.

A number of times this spring, my non-rail fan neighbour, invited me to his home to meet a retired railwayman; something always conflicted and my neighbour was unsure of his "craft" or where he had worked. This week, I reluctantly agreed to his invitation.

Turns out Art Sangster (sic), probably in his late 80s, sharp as a tack about long-ago co-workers, engine numbers and everything inside the cab of old steam locomotives. During his 1947-64 in-the-cab career with CPR he ventured to Fredericton, McAdam, Woodstock, Aroostock and Edmundston, But it was his tenure on the Minto Sub, that really got my attention. For the uninitiated, that Sub was the home of three 1880s constructed CPR tea-kettles til about 1960. Circa 1952-54, Art was the assigned fireman of number 29, a 4-4-0 constructed at CPR's DeLorimier Avenue Shops in Montreal in 1887.

When I got home, I checked a couple of my references.

- On page 22 of Bill Linley's Canadian Pacific in Color, Volume I, is Omar Lavalle's July 4, 1952 image of #29 with the fireman in the cab. Could this be Art?

- The November 1953 visit to CPR's facilities in Chipman and Norton on the Minto Sub (and to Digby on the DAR) by David P Morgan and Phil Hastings were well documented in TRAINS magazine C1954 and reprinted in Classic Trains In Search of Steam summer 2008. Again, within Art's term of duty.

I have invited Art to spend an afternoon with me. While we haven't set a date, if anyone has has a long standing technical question about something inside, or outside, the cab of an old steamer, I will try to get an explanation from Art. A good number of the W&AR and Y&AR engines absorbed by the DAR would have very similar technology to #29.

Fred

[fergusontea]

Fred, there was very recently a lot of discussion of the Minto sub on the NBRails list on Yahoo Groups. It's an interesting coincidence that you mention it here.

-mike

[stem]

There are a lot of McAdam / Minto sub fans around that would die to talk to Art about his carreer. One of them I figure would be Steve Boyko. Steve's a really great guy and would appreaciate such an invite. Why don't you write him and see if there's anything he'd like to contribute in the way of questions? s t e v e @ t h e b o y k o s . c o m (remove the spaces).

[downeastrailfan]

Hi Fred,

Charles Smiley recently released a video called "Canadian Rails" which includes the steamers on the Norton-Chipman run. http://www.trainmovies.com/

The steamers on that run were very well covered by railfans from far and wide, thanks to the article by David P. Morgan.