ROMANCE IN A TRAIN

Shannon News, 8 November 1927, Page 3

ROMANCE IN A TRAIN

THE GREAT “SILK SPECIAL” FASTEST TRAIN IN AMERICA. } VANCOUVER, Oct. 4. The accident that recently befel tire Vancouver to New York silk special train, in which two carloads of silk were derailed in the Fraser River canybn, falling 200 ft. to the river-bed, marked the first occasion in two years in which the silk special will have arrived in New York late. In the shipment there were 21 cars, 28 tons to the car, in all 7,300 bales,’ of a total value of £1,500,000, the freight charges on which were? £20,000, running on schedule of 80 hours from Vancouver to New York, a distance of 3400 miles, or an average of 42 miles per hour across the continent.

The silk special is a romantic train. It attracts notice all the way across the country from Indians, farmers, travellers all tire communities through which it passes turn out in force, twice a month, to see it flash through. The limited, expresses and "locals” are all side-tracked to give it a clear run. A new engine is attached. every 350 miles. Brakes are inspected, l and the locks of each car are examined by 'experts at every pause.

Three hours are allowed at Vancouver for loading the sillc .from the Empress boats, the greyhounds of the Pacific. *Apepalty of £2OO is imposed for every hour, or part of an hour that the train is late in New York. The penalty has not been paid since the route was changed from via San Francisco, two years ago.

When Prince Henry was on his way hop'ie from his naval station in the Far East, last Christmas, he stood for half an hour in the drenching rain, on the wharf at midnight, watching the silk special being loaded, while Vancouver’s dignitaries waited to welcome him .to Canada. . Daughters of Eve—-the Ojibway squaw, jmpoose at back, the farmer’s wife on the prairie the city debutante —all watch for the eastbound flyer, the beacon of beauty, bearing its cargo of soft, shimmering, clinging, beautiful silk, that is a. gift of untold joy to myriads of their sex. For, as Kipling might have said: — “Since our women must walk gay, tfsnd ijuoney buys their gear, the silk specials speed that way, in season year ’by year.’’ 1