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Post by trainguru on Nov 11, 2021 4:26:07 GMT -8
In addition to what Neil has written above I have heard that CP (and CN for that matter) had other priorities in the 1950's. In 1950 these railways were powered 100% by steam locomotives. By 1960 they were powered 100% by diesel-electric locomotives. That change was very expensive and didn't leave a lot of money left over for other endeavours like modernizing the west coast steamship fleet. I have often thought that in a parallel universe CP would have found the money to turn their fleet of steamships & routes into a modern ferry fleet with new, shortened routes & BC Ferries might never have come to pass, but alas, that did not happen. Fun fact on the conversion, WettCoast, because there were still steam locomotives kicking-about CP property (cold) until the mid/late 1960s! All aside, if they did "modernize," would we have had the Maggie still on the Seattle-Victoria run, or would she have been converted for Cruising like Pat was? And would all ships have followed PoV and Nan's pattern, just PoV, or copy some IoMSP's last side-loaders designs too?
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Post by trainguru on Nov 11, 2021 4:30:13 GMT -8
When the province announced plans in July of 1958 to start a ferry system, among the reasons given were that CP and Black Ball had supposedly declared, when asked, that they were not willing to make significant capital expenditures in ships and terminals. So I'm guessing that this article was referring to a ship that was never given the actual go ahead by CP's brass. Maybe they thought that the expenditures on the Princess of Vancouver and Princess of Nanaimo were enough. Given how similar those vessels were, I think it's likely that the suggested third vessel would have been cut from the same general pattern. In any event, the strike of '58 sealed the fate of private ferry service on our coast, at least in any major sense. We can certainly criticize the province and BC Ferries for holding on to vessels long past their prime, but the CPR had a long history of doing the same thing, as well as keeping to an obsolete model, and it killed them in the end. So the proposed ship was killed-off sometime between December 1st, 1956, and July 1958, by CP brass. Would the factors of the 1958 Recession and the Continuing Conversion to Diesel-Electric Locomotives, been the leading factors? Or were they more-tired of Passenger Maritime Operations in-general?
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