#canadian pacific railways

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"UNIONS EMPOWERED TO DECLARE STRIKE OF RUNNING TRADES," Toronto Globe. September 30, 1933. Page 1 & 2. ---- General Chairmen of Rail Brotherhoods Considering Next Move --- SECRET SESSIONS HELD ---- Growing Industrial Troubles Complicate Conditions in Canada ---- While one Canadian industrial strike was deadlocked yesterday an- other that might involve 30,000 workers was authorized.

Eight-hundred workers appeared definitely out of work with the decision of executives of six furniture factories and one meat packing plant to break off negotiations with workers who walked out a fortnight ago demanding higher wages and union recognition. In Montreal, union officials of the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Railway running trades announced a strike vote had authorized them to call a walk-out If other efforts should fail to prevent enforcement of a second 10 per cent. cut in the basic wage rate. It was rumored, however, that further conferences would be held between union heads and railway executives.

At Kelowna, British Columbia, 500 angry farmers won their first skirmish against fruit shippers they claim were seeking to violate rules of a newly created Stabilization Marketing Board by shipping apples to market in bulk carloads. The farmers crowded onto a siding and prevented a locomotive from picking up cars said to be laden with bulk fruit shipment. While the 500 growers resisted passively, others rushed to Vernon, thirty miles distant, roused Judge Swanson and secured an Injunction preventing shipper and two railways from moving fruit in contravention of the board's "orderly marketing" rules.

Rail Strike Authorized. Montreal, Sept. 29. - With their hands strengthened by a vote among about 30,000 members empowering a strike, leaders of the railway running trades tonight were considering the next step in their fight against a second 10 per cent, cut in basic wage rates.

Since the tabulation of the vote was completed yesterday, the twenty- one General Chairmen and five union Vice-Presidents have been in conference behind closed doors. Announcement of the result of the strike ballot was made today after the rail- ways were first notified as a courtesy, but the figures for and against were not revealed. The bare announcement that the men had given the union leaders power to call a strike was not accompanied by any statement as to future action. although rumors about their headquarters were that another wage conference would be held shortly with railway heads.

Lines Not Surprised. From the railways no comment was forthcoming. The result of the vote probably occasioned little surprise, however, as it had been freely predicted for several days.

If further efforts to settle the question amicably should fail, the union heads would have to decide the date of the strike and make other preparations. The question of whether railway workers outside the running trades would join in a walkout would be considered. A co-operative association of railway labor unions has been formed to deal with this, among other questions.

The second cut in basic rates went into effect on May 1. A previous cut of 10 per cent., while not involved in the strike vote, is still subject to dispute, and a test case is being started in the courts to collect the deductions made after Feb. 1, 1933, on - which date the men claim their agreement for a reduced wage expired. Union men declined today to say whether the vote had been communicated to the Dominion Government.

Companies to Reply. Edmonton, Sept. 29. - "It is quite correct. The railways have taken cognizance of the communication and will make their reply in a few days. That is all it possible for me I to say just now," said E. W. Beatty, President of the Canadian Pacific Railway, today when shown a report from Montreal saying officials of the railway running trades unions had notified the companies they had been authorized by their members to call a strike.

[20th-century-railroading]

Susquehanna

N.Y.S.& W. EMD GP18's 1804 & 1800 head West with a three car train.

Little Ferry, New Jersey June 1994

[guy60660]

Canadian Pacific Railway

[partiallypearl]

i think about frank zhang and his family and how shen lun fled camp jupiter to canada and the historical context behind it all and i shiver.

shen and his family, i imagine that they would have immigrated during the gold rush (after the san Francisco earthquake) which would be right during the chinese head tax

and the railway was constructed from 1881-1885, and that's when the government first started the head tax

so reasonably his family could have immigrated to canada during that time period escaping cj, and his relatives could have either been gold miners or railway workers

they would have attempted to bring more family members from china over only to be blocked by the head tax and the raising of the price

[vox-anglosphere]

For a lifetime of memories, cross the Rocky Mountains on the CPR

[iris-echos]

Hey yallll

Ive had tumblr for a while but ive only just started using it bc i found out my (now ex but we chill i prommy) girlfriend is on it so i thought id do a lil into

My name is neither iris nor echo but bc im not gonna share my name here just call me one of those if youre gonna refer to me by anything

Im a minor so dont be like... weird or creepy or anything (basically no sexual stuff and no one flirt with me)

I am in so many damn fandoms like the magnus archives/protocol, welcome to nightvale, supernatural, Sherlock, doctor who, good omens, ofmd, dndads theres others but i can't think of any more

Uhhhhhhhhhhh

I do art sometimes? Its not always great but im proud of it (i love making tma fanart bc it gives me excuses for shitty proportions)

I also really like music... like a lot

I have adhd and probably other stuff but adhd is the only one that's confirmed

Oh and yeah just dont be an asshole both on my page and just in general (no bullying, racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, sexism, ect.) i dont care if it was "just a joke"

Thats it bye guyssss

Edit: full fandom list (will be updated) i may interact with some of these more than others but unless i remove one im still fairly interested in it and may mention it occasionally

Batman/dc/batfam

Criminal minds (s7)

The Magnus Archives (not really protocol as much bc i like binging episodes)

Dungeons and daddies/peachyville

Malevolent

House MD (s4)

Merlin BBC (s5 but not finished)

Sherlock BBC

Supernatural (s10/11? Idk its been a while)

Doctor Who (s8)

Newsies

Romeo and Juliet

Will Wood

Good Omens

Dead Boy Detectives

Hannibal (s1)

Midst

Marauders (fucking hate jkr tho she can drown)

911

Ace Attorney

[grainelevator]

Canadian Pacific 3065 (EMD GP38-2) leaving the grain elevator in Rockglen, Saskatchewan [source]

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Canadian Pacific Railway is leading cleanup and track repairs following a freight train derailment and fire in Maine, officials said Sunday.

Three rail workers were treated and released from hospital after three locomotive engines and six train cars carrying lumber and electrical wiring went off the track on Saturday in Somerset County, officials said.

Canadian Pacific is leading cleanup, salvage and repair, working with state agencies and local fire and rescue, said Jim Britt of the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry. Workers were removing derailed locomotives and rail cars, cleaning up crash debris and repairing the rail line. It was unclear how long the process would take.

Some hazardous materials were on the train, officials said, but first responders determined they were not at risk of leaking or catching fire. There was no threat to public safety, officials said. [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Big Business can't stop its illegal, fantastically lucrative gossiping

Seven years ago, I called Leonard Cohen’s Everybody Knows “the perfect anthem for our times.”

Everybody knows the war is over Everybody knows the good guys lost Everybody knows the fight was fixed The poor stay poor, the rich get rich That’s how it goes Everybody knows

https://memex.craphound.com/2016/11/11/leonard-cohen-wrote-the-perfect-anthem-for-our-times/

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/16/compulsive-cheaters/#rigged

That was just after Cohen died, and while the world seems to want to settle on Hallelujah as his totemic song, Everybody Knows keeps inserting itself into the discourse, in the most toxic, hope-draining way possible. Whenever some awful scandal involving the great and the good breaches, we’re told that “everybody knew” already, so let’s move on.

This current has been running through our society for decades now. Remember when the Snowden leaks hit and a yawning chorus of nihilists told us that they knew already and so should anyone else with the smallest iota of sophistication? Back then Jay Rosen coined a rejoinder to this counsel of despair: “Don’t savvy me”:

https://twitter.com/jayrosen_nyu/status/344825874362810369

Everybody knows. It’s what we heard after the Panama Papers. Swissleaks. Luxleaks. The Paradise Papers. Everybody knows! It’s what the nothing-to-see-here crowd said about Propublica’s explosive IRSLeaks, back in 2021:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/15/guillotines-and-taxes/#carried-interest

The leaks revealed the tax-dodges of the richest and most powerful people in America, which were jaw-dropping in their audacity and shamelessness. Sure, maybe you suspected that the 400 richest people in America paid less tax than you — but did you really guess that the means by which they did this was through taking massive deductions on their elite hobbies?

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/13/taxes-are-for-the-little-people/#leona-helmsley-2022

Maybe “everybody knows” that the game is rigged, but did you know how? Like, did you know that REITs — a tax shelter for mom-and-pop investors who buy an income property for their retirement — have become a primary vehicle for gutting unions at hotels, slashing wages and imposing brutal, dangerous working conditions?

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/01/reit-modernization-act/#reit-makes-might

The leaks are cumulative. By combining data from one leak with another, we can build out a far more detailed picture of the conspiracy — and it is a conspiracy — among the utlrawealthy and their Renfields in the law, real-estate and accounting trades to duck their responsibilities and mound ever-more treasure on their hoards.

Take the Jersey Offshore leaks (2020), comprising the internal memos of La Hougue, a fantastically crooked firm of fixers on the Isle of Jersey, one of the lawless tax-crime jurisdictions that the UK pretends it has no control over. La Hougue has a playbook, 11 tactics for lying about your taxes. The remarkable thing about these 11 tactics is how flimsy they are, how easy it is to penetrate their lies. When Parliament says it can’t possibly do anything about the criminal havens in the Channel, remember the Jersey Offshore leaks and remind yourself that not even Parliament is that credulous. They know. Everybody knows:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/20/la-hougue/#complexity

Why do working people think the Democrats are just another party for the ultra-rich? Maybe it’s Pelosi’s relentless opposition to meaningful curbs on insider trading. Or maybe it’s the kinds of politicians that the Democratic Machine likes to rally behind — like Tali Farhadian Weinstein, who raised millions in 2021, in large-money donations from Democratic finance-sector donors in her bid to become the DA of Manhattan. Farhadian Weinstein and her husband have more than $100m in annual income, and yet, paid no federal tax in 2013, 2015 and 2017. In 2014, they paid $6,584:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/17/quis-custodiet-irs/#trumps-taxes

Propublica isn’t done with the IRS Files. Today, they published a long investigation into ultra-rich corporate executives who buy and sell their competitors’ stock for massive profits with suspiciously precise timing. The data comes from 1099-B filings, which brokerages file with the IRS with each trade, but which the IRS doesn’t share with the SEC:

https://www.propublica.org/article/secret-irs-files-trading-competitors-stock

Here are some examples:

Ohio billionaire August Troendle, CEO of Medpace, repeatedly bought and sold shares of $Syneos — his company’s archrival, timing the transactions with a management shakeup that dropped the stock by 16% in one day, and an SEC investigation that crushed Syneos’s stock by 25%. His precision timing made him at least $2.3m in profit.

Isaac Larian, CEO of Bratz-maker MGA, made $28m trading shares in Mattel, MGA’s nemesis and frequent litigant — during a period when Mattel stock crashed by 57% (!). Larian boasts that “I made a LOT more money shorting Mattel stock than they did running a $4.5 billion toy company.”

Larian’s trades also involved some very precise timing. Sometimes, he took positions just before his own company announced its upcoming products, and others positions immediately preceded major disclosures from Mattel. Larian’s subordinates told Propublica that he is “is a boss with an endless appetite for information about his company and its competitors, constantly grilling subordinates on minutiae about the industry.”

Larian couldn’t explain the timing of these trades. His lawyer told Propublica that it was “false and defamatory” to suggest that he “possessed material, nonpublic information that Larian knew was obtained in breach of a duty.”

Next up is Gerald Boelte, founder and chair of the massive oil company LLOG. LLOG partners with other companies for its oil drilling. Companies like Stone Energy. Boelte bought a huge position in Stone the day before the company’s 2015 earnings report, in which they revealed an increase their reserves’ value, pulling in a 65% one day profit. He’d never bought shares in Stone before.

Boetle told Propublica, “I do not and have never traded on any material, non-public information of competitors, business partners or others… Any implication that I was investing based upon advance knowledge is therefore clearly false.”

Jim Sankey is CEO of Invue. He bought $3.2m worth of shares in his rival Checkpoint, while checkpoint was in secret negotiations to be acquired by CCL Industries. Sankey was already thoroughly connected to Checkpoint, having sold a $150m product line to them in 2007. There’s no record that he’d ever traded Checkpoint before. He made $2.3m. Sankey says “he did not know Checkpoint was going to be acquired.” He says that his company was not approached by Checkpoint as a potential acquirer.

Barry Wish was a board member of Ocwen, a company he co-founded. After the Great Financial Crisis, Ocwen bid unsuccessfully to buy $215b worth of Bank of America mortgages. The winning bidder was Nationstar. Three weeks before Nationstar’s winning bid was announced, Wish bought $600k worth of Nationstar shares. After the bid was announced, he sold them for for a $157k profit.

Wish told Propublica that he never traded competitors’ stock: “No, not at all.” Propublica read him the details of the trade from his leaked 1099-B. He said “You might see it, but I don’t have any recollection” and hung up.

Steven Grossman is a cardboard heir — a nepobaby who inherited Southern Container Corp from his grandpa. After he sold the company to Rock-Tenn for $1b in 2013, he stayed on as a senior exec. Over the next 5 years, he traded large blocks of shares in Rock-Tenn’s competitors, companies like Temple-Inland, a company that he made a 37% profit on after its acquisition was announced in 2011, one week after Grossman started buying its shares.

Grossman falsely told Propublica, “I haven’t traded stock since then.” IRS records show that Grossman continued to trade. Grossman also told Propublica that he had no role with Rock-Tenn, despite being on their payroll for five years. When asked about his extremely lucky timing buying and selling Temple-Inland, he said “That was 10 years ago” and hung up.

As Propublica’s Robert Faturechi and Ellis Simani write, Securities regulations have their origins in the crash of 1929, and the subsequent collapse in confidence in markets and capitalism, the sense that the system was rigged for the wealthy and political insiders. That is a pretty good summation of sentiment today:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/15/mon-dieu-les-guillotines/#ceci-nes-pas-une-bailout

It’s not just that corporate executives are corrupt, it’s that they’re lavishly, shamelessly, endlessly, incorrigibly corrupt. Take Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern, the sixth- and seventh-largest Class I railroads in the USA, whose merger was just approved by the Surface Transportation Board.

There are plenty of good reasons for the STB to have blocked this merger. The rail industry is already excessively concentrated, and its top execs are so convinced that they’re both too big to fail and too big to jail that they’re rendering entire towns permanently uninhabitable in order to eke out a few more points in profit:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/11/dinah-wont-you-blow/#ecp

But there are specific reasons to have blocked this merger, starting with the whistleblower report about CP and KCS executives illegally coming together for a three-day “retreat” at The Breakers hotel in Palm Beach, a notorious site for Republican operatives to collude with the business lobby:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2023-03-16-canadian-pacific-kansas-city-southern-rail-merger/

As Luke Goldstein writes for The American Prospect, both companies spent millions in 2020 and 2022 on campaign contributions to “grease the skids” for the merger — in particular, ensuring that the combined company could transport Alberta tar sands oil (the filthiest, most energy intensive oil in the world) to US ports.

Though the STB was informed of the illegal meeting — in which the two companies behaved as though the merger had already been finalized — STB chair Martin Oberman told Goldstein that the Board did not write to the companies for an explanation before waving through their merger.

Instead, Oberman dismissed the complaint on the grounds that “Railroads have to be able to talk to one another to function.” Typically this takes place over a free phone call, though — not on a three-day executive junket at a hotel where the rooms run $1,500/night.

Oberman knows what happened at that meeting.

Everybody knows.

It comes as no surprise to learn that before FTX imploded and destroyed the savings of its depositors, it paid out $3b to its top executives, including the criminal Sam Bankman-Fried:

https://gizmodo.com/sbf-ftx-crypto-sam-bankman-fried-1850232043

It comes as no surprise that Silicon Valley Bank paid out bonuses to its execs and employees hours before it collapsed:

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/11/silicon-valley-bank-employees-received-bonuses-hours-before-takeover.html

Everybody knows.

It’s comforting to think that the tax code loopholes that the ultrawealthy exploit are an epiphenomenon of complexity, an unavoidable consequence of the technical requirements of a big regulation that spans 300m+ people. But the truth is, the loopholes in the US tax code were inserted by politicians who got massive campaign contributions from donors who directly benefited from those loopholes. Senator Ron Johnson got $20m from the owners of Uline (Dick and Liz Uihlein) and roofing magnate Diane Hendricks, then he blocked the Trump tax bill until his fellow lawmakers inserted a loophole that produced $215m for the Uihleins and Hendricks, in just the first year:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/11/the-canada-variant/#shitty-man-of-history-theory It’s not even surprising that a sitting US Senator amended a bill to give hundreds of millions of dollars to billionaires who gave him tens of millions of dollars.

Everybody knows. It’s weirdly comforting to think that everyday people vote for demagogue wreckers because Facebook hired a legion of evil sorcerers to fashion a mind-control ray out of Big Data and AI, but Facebook lies about everything, and everyone who ever claimed to have a mind-control ray was a liar.

Maybe people vote for demagogue wreckers because they believe the system is rotten, and maybe they believe the system is rotten because the system is rotten. Maybe the self-described evil sorcerers of Big Tech aren’t “hacking our dopamine loops” — maybe they’re just helping opportunists target people who are justifiably angry:

https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59

The problem with this explanation is that it requires “progressive” parties to actually do stuff to demonstrate that they are on the side of people, not the side of paperclip-maximizing immortal colony organisms and the corporate executives who pretend to run them:

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1184004730722217984

I try to have hope — that is, I try to believe that if we can only make changes to our material circumstances, however small they may seem, that we might attain a new vantagepoint that reveals more possible changes within our grasp:

https://gen.medium.com/hope-not-optimism-943e88291b

Some days, it’s hard to have hope. Some days, it’s so obvious that everybody knows, all that I can muster is fury. Fury is not a full substitute for hope, but it’ll do. It’s a far superior alternative to the fatalism that “everybody knows” and thus nothing can be done.

Some fights you win, and other fights, you just fight, because surrender isn’t an option. Everybody knows, right? If everybody knows, then everybody might just decide to do something about it.

Next Monday (Mar 20), I’m doing a remote talk for the Ostrom Workshop’s Beyond the Web Speaker Series.

[Image ID: A smoke-filled room lit by candles. Around a large formal table sit various 19th century gentlemen-type people. One of them stands and reads from a memo. The shadow he casts is in the shape of a dollar-sign.]

[graintrainbrain]

A postcard from 1906 showing the Canadian Pacific Railway station in Brandon, Manitoba. Photo source

Brandon is a true railroad town; it may never have existed without the CPR. The railroad company chose and named the townsite in 1881, electing to run the trans-continental railroad just 3.2km west of the existing settlement of Grand Valley. Today, Brandon is the second-largest city in Manitoba, while Grand Valley is a Historical Site display cairn.

[menubot]

Why not enjoy some Broiled Wiltshire Bacon at Canadian Pacific Railway? http://menus.nypl.org/menus/12605

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"AVERT RAIL STRIKE BY FEDERAL ACTION. IS REPORTED PLAN," Toronto Globe. October 5, 1933. Page 1 & 2. --- Intervention Rumor Is Strengthened by Bennett Conference With Officials ---- STATEMENT TO BE ISSUED ---- Cahan at Montreal "Prays to Heaven" for Settlement ---- (Canadian Press Despatch.) ---- Ottawa, Oct. 4. - Belief that the Dominion Government will intercede in the dispute between Canadian railways and their employees over the proposed wage reduction was strengthened today as Prime Minister Bennet: held long conferences with S. J. Hungerford, President of the Canadian National, and Grant Hall, Vice-President of the Canadian Pacific.

It is understood further discussions will take place tomorrow between Mr. Bennett and representatives of the men, whose recent vote on the question was said to be overwhelmingly in favor of a strike rather than acceptance of the second reduction of 10 per cent, below the basic rate of pay.

No official information was available today, but it is believed possible statement may be issued shortly indicating what has been done to alleviate the situation.

Beatty. Back Today. E. W. Beatty, K.C., President of the Canadian Pacific, who has been on an extended tour of Western Canada, will be in Ottawa tomorrow on his way back to Montreal, and will no doubt confer with the Prime Minister.

Associated with this problem, and considered in some quarters as of similar importance, is the matter of appointing new trustees to replace the Canadian National Board of Directors. The legislation designed: to stimulate co-operation between the two great systems, and to reorganize the Canadian National, went into effect on July 1. It called for the appointment of a board of three trustees to replace the Canadian National directors.

Announcement that these appointments had been made has been expected daily for the past week. It is understood Mr. Bennett will endeavor, if at all possible, to name this board before he leaves Saturday for his Western tour, so that no further time may be lost in setting in motion the plans for economic co-operation which have been formulated by a joint committee of the two railways during the interval since the legislation was enacted by Parliament.

Cahan Hopes for Settlement. Montreal, Oct. 4. - "I pray to Heaven that those men will not go to the extreme of a strike," declared Hon. C. H. Cahan, Secretary of State, today, in discussing the railway running trades' strike vote before the Women's Conservative Association of Montreal.

Responsibility of the most serious kind, Mr. Cahan stated, rested upon the railway employees when they were considering a strike. They must remember that they would be bringing ruin to many commercial and industrial enterprises throughout the length and breadth of Canada in refusing to accept a reduction "in the highest rate of wages paid any workers."

Sympathy with the railway men faced with reduction in their earnings was expressed by the Secretary of State. All classes in Canada, however, were called on to make sacrifices. "As for the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, it has brought more credit to Canada than any other institution," he continued. "I think we have made up our minds fully - and in this I believe I can speak for the Government of Canada - that so long as we have any credit left we are not going to allow the C.P.R. to go into the hands of a receiver and into banruptcy."

The country has to make good a deficit of $50,000,000 to $60,000,000 a year in the running expenses of the Canadian National Railways, мг. Cahan said, "and it seems pretty hard to impose increased taxes to pay more money to the men who operate that road."

[20th-century-railroading]

STL663 by Citizen of the Galaxy Via Flickr: The head end of eastbound NYS&W double stack train NTV-4C, on this day borrowed CP Rail power including lead SD40-2 No. 5697, crests the Erie mainline grade at Gulf Summit on the first day of February 1992, back when winter looked a little more like winter.

[thorsenmark]

Mount Temple and the Bow River from Morant’s Curve (Banff National Park) by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: A setting looking to the southwest while taking in views from Morant’s Curve along the Bow Valley Parkway in Banff National Park. My thought on composing this image was to pull back on the focal length and include foreground interest with the Bow River and some nearby forest. Mount Temple and other ridges and peaks of the Bow Range would be a backdrop for this setting in the Canadian Rockies.

[winnipegwinterpeg]

Canadian Pacific Rail Station, Winnipeg, taken around 1940. The building, which was the fourth railway station on the site, was built between 1904-1906, and enlarged in 1915. It operated as a railway station until 1978. It has the distinction of being the first Beaux-Arts style building in Canada. Since 1992, it’s belonged to the Neeginan Centre, or the Aboriginal Centre of Winnipeg

[vox-anglosphere]

Storm clouds brew over an iconic prairie landscape in Bulyea, Sask