#angus shops

"TURNING OUT ONE COMPLETE TRAIN A DAY," Winnipeg Tribune. December 4, 1913. Page 13. ---- Shops at Angus Largest of Their Kind in the Dominion-C.P.R. Building Cars of Steel ---- The Canadian Pacific railway's shops at Angus, in the extreme northeast of Montreal, are the largest of their kind in the Dominion. Here pig iron is turned into monster locomotives with shiny fittings, and when roughhewn logs are not employed made into palace parlor cars. Angus shopmen boast that the plant is capable of turning out a complete train a day. When the entire force is working an army of 6.000 men are employed at the works.

From the boy who deftly catches bucket of red-hot bolts tossed to him from a forge twenty feet away, to the expert engaged in tuning and testing the bells and sirens which are to clangs and whistle in Saskatchewan or Austria, every person at Angus fits into his niche of the intricate organization and there is no confusion and no de-ay.

When the Pennsylvania railroad system completed its tunnel into New York, it made a regulation that no wooden cars were to make use of its lines. This led the railway companies of Canada to construct steel cars, for which the public had been agitating for some time, as they constituted less risk to the tray.... So that now wooden cars are gradually disappearing and will soon be 3 thing of the past.

The decision on the part of the Canadian Pacific to build its cars of steel instead of using wooden bodies, while not exactly a new step in Industrial activity, will probably be taken up on a larger scale than ever before on this continent. The capacity of the new steel shops which have just been completed is ten cars a day, and this department of the works is now running full blast.

Assembling a Steel Car. When the trucks are delivered from the trucks shop, steel girders, punched for bolts and rivets, are hoisted on cranes and held in position while a workman with a hydraulic drill drives the fasteners into place. The assembling of a steel car is much more speedy than the old method of building wooden coaches, using the trucks as foundation. A large amount of the old equipment which was used in the construction of the wooden cars 14 being reconverted and adapted for the making of the new carriers.

This department of the Angus shops is now in the course of transposition and will be much condensed, as wooden parts required will be much less numerous. The wooden box which forms the exterior of the freight car is fastened outside of the girders and can be replaced on the same car when it wears out.

Comfort and Luxury. Although the project of making all cars, passenger and freight alike, with steel frames, has been proposed, and is now under serious consideration by the C. P. R., no move has been made at Angus towards installing a steel plant for passenger coaches. The general plan of assembling a passenger car is that used in other train work, the component parts being added to the trucks, which are set in the erecting pits to be built upon.

The finished parlor car is in itself an achievement, for here not only safety and utility are to be considered but comfort and luxury for the passengers.

Coaling Up Real Test of Engine. Coaling up is the real test of an engine's worth. Parts may have been perfect and preliminary inspection may have found no defect in the whole, but engines are made to run, and if this one will not, back it goes through a long series of tests and examinations to discover where is its weak point. As with ships at their first launching, the constructing engineer who has planned the whole is never certain that his locomotive will run without mishap.

To the east of the Angus shop is a side track where the monster engines are first tried with coal in the bunkers and steam in the boiler.

A little group always gathers around the new engine. Fires have been laid, the smoke pours through the exhaust pipe and the fireman gives a preliminary tug at the bell rope Then the grisled engineer, who is the only one who does not appear excited. throws open a throttle, opens the siren into hideous shriek, and the leviathan chugs along the track, as if this were no new feat and it had been chugging along tracks for years.

"Angus Shops Strikers Back," Montreal Star. July 27, 1943. Page 3. --- Return on Promise To Consider Demands ---- Nearly all of the 1,600 striking machinists, day laborers and helpers of the Canadian Pacific Angus Shops returned to their jobs today on a promise made to them by company and union officials that their demands for an increase in the basic wage rate and a week's holiday with pay would receive "prompt consideration" as soon as they had returned to work.

Decision to return to work was reached at a mass meeting of union officials and workers at l'Assistance Publique Hall last night. At an early hour this morning, "practically all" the men had returned to their jobs, a company official stated.

The workers struck last Thursday, causing the layoff by the company of 6,000 skilled workers. Employes, now receiving 38 cents an hour basic wages as well as nine cents an hour cost of living bonus, ask that hourly basic rates be raised to 50 cents.

Acting as spokesman for the hundreds of workers at the meeting last night, Vincent Cabane urged the men to "show common sense" and return to their jobs. A day laborer himself, Cabane told his audience that the C.P.R. Local Federation, Division 4, A.F. of L., would back the workers in making their demands.

“La fermeture des usines Angus, du Pacifique Canadien, a eu, comme on pouvait s'y attendre, un douloureux retentissement dans la population de Montréal. C'est plus de quatre mille ouvriers qui se sont trouvés du jour au lendemain sans travail. et partant sans ressources. Beaucoup sont chefs ou soutiens de famille. Aussi la municipalité s'est-elle émue, Une conférence s'est tenue entre membres du comité exécutif et représentants du Pacifique Canadien. La ville exige que la compagnie rappelle au moins 2,500 hommes, ainsi que le prévoit son contrat. Faute de quoi les usines Angus seront, au point de vue de taxes, évaluées à leur juste valeur, trés supérieures au million de dollars de l'évaluation actuelle. M. Gabias, particulièrement énergique, à refusé d'admettre le cas de force majeure.”

“MILLION DOLLAR LOCOMOTIVE SPENDS NIGHT IN NORTH BAY,” North Bay Nugget. September 26, 1931. Page 2. ---- C.P.R.'s Newest Engine is Huge Monster Weighs 39 Tons ---- IS 99 FEET LONG --- The newest and most powerful locomotive on the C.P.R. system a one of the largest in the world was in North Bay yards for about 10 hours yesterday passing on it way to the mountain division at 1 am today The huge monster weighing about 39 1/2 tons is of the 8,000 class and has very many unusual details that interested the hundreds of citizens and railway employes that visited and Inspected it yesterday afternoon. 

Built at the Angus shops in Montreal at a cost of over one million dollars. It was given the most thorough test in actual operation. As an instance of its hauling power, it pulled a train of 8,031 tons from Smiths Falls to Montreal in a little over four hours. It is expected that it will be used in the mountain section in hauling heavy passenger trains over the heavy grades and that it will be able to handle them alone, without the aid of pusher engines. At the present time, three and four extra engines and crews are used in hauling the big trains and it is expected that this one engine will do the work of all. 

An Oil Burner The mammoth engine Is equipped as an oil burner and In the tender there are tanks that are capable of carrying 4,350 gallons of fuel oil and 12,000 gallons of water. 

There are two boilers to this monster of the rails, a high pressure and a low pressure boiler. Three cylinders, one high and two low pressure, supply the power for the 10 big 63 inch drive wheels. The exhaust from the high pressure cylinder is returned to a small drum and there is mixed with steam from the low pressure boiler and fed back to the low pressure cylinders. There are water superheaters and steam superheaters and in fact everything that would save or assist in making steam for power. 

Tons of Fittings The total length of the engine and tender Is 99 feet 3 1/2 inches. 

After the tests at Montreal, the locomotive was dismantled and is being towed to the west dead. In four freight cars are parts taken from the engine, weighing near 30 tons. This will be re-installed at a western shop. 

“Torch Cuts Steel Bar From Body Of Worker,” Montreal Star. April 8, 1932. Page 3. ---- Rail Worker Has Fighting Chance of Recovery ---- His chest pierced by a steel bar, a section of which had to be cut through by an oxy-acetylene torch before he could be removed to St Luke's Hospital, Pierre Gagnon, 64, 5288 Bordeaux street, lies in the hospital today with a fighting chance of recovery. This morning he was said to be resting easily.

The accident happened yesterday afternoon. Gagnon, employed by the C.P.R. at the Angus shops was cutting a bar of metal by meant of a steam-hammer and a slice-bar the hammer being used to force the blade of the slice-bar through the metal to be cut. 

Just exactly what happened is not known but as the hammer descended, the end of the slice-bar was projected towards Gagnon with such force that It pierced his right side. A C. P. R. doctor on duty at the shops and a first aid squad was immediately summoned, the doctor ordering the bar Instantly cut through with a torch. Gagnon was rushed to hospital immediately after this.

“Angus Shops Craftsmen Celebrate 100th Tank,” The Porcupine Advance (Timmins). November 20, 1941. Page 6. ---- It was a proud moment for employees of the Canadian Pacific Railway’s Angus shops at Montreal when the 100th army tank rolled off the shops assembly line to take its place with others in the British armed forces. The important production milestone was marked by a gala ceremony during which Tank No. 100, gaily bedecked with flags and placards, was paraded down the shops midway to te strains of the employees’ brass band.

Cheering throngs of shopmen lined the broad runway as the tank-of-honor rumbled by symbolizing the stepped up tempo of production since the first Canadian-built tank was released from the big plant early in the summer. Large placards affixed to the tanks’ khaki sides indicated the determination of the employes who staged the ceremony on their own initiative, to do all in their power to contribute to victory.

As the procession drew up before the tank shops where other finished tanks stood in a grim line, the band played ‘O Canada’ and the National Anthem, and this was followed by lusty cheers as the Angus workers surveyed their handiwork. Many of the tank’s 99 Angus-built predecessor are already in service with the armed forces, and as the above placard says: ‘Hundreds more will follow quickly.