A Small Piece of a Larger Railway History
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
By Simon Ducatel
Advocate Reporter
Published Wednesday July 25, 2007

Recently refurbished as a restaurant right by Aspen Crossing outside of Mossleigh, the dining car there may very well be the oldest of its kind left in North America.

Built in 1887, the 76 foot long Pullman Dining Car has seen its share of service, with no end in sight, even if it no longer travels.

"As a Pullman car, it would have been manufactured in Chicago, the then railway capital of the North," said Darrel Babuk, an architect from Chicago who’s family lived in the Vulcan train station from 1962 to 1968 when his father worked as the last Canadian Pacific Railway Station Agent posted there.

"Those days of living in the Vulcan train station are still with me in Chicago," Babuk said. Reminiscing about 1965, just as the station was closing, Babuk recounts the story of a last minute visit by John Diefenbaker and his wife, Olive.

"When I finally came home to the station after school that day, the scene was pure pandemonium," he said, "all of the stores in Vulcan seem to have closed, and the entire town was on our doorstep, waiting for the Diefenbakers."

It’s unlikely the dining car by Aspen Crossing was the same one Diefenbaker and his family came in on that day, but for a time, the former Prime Minister did have the Aspen Crossing Pullman as his personal car.

Now serving patrons as a cozy diner over-looking the prairies and Aspen Crossing’s garden, the Pullman car started off its existence in very much the same manner.

Originally designed as an improvement to his sleeping cars, George Pullman worked until he had enough capital to realize his vision of creating a dining car, states the Chicago Historical Society (CHS) website.

It would be a work in progress, as railroad companies refused his first attempt at a luxury car because it was too wide for platforms and bridges.

But once a Pullman car was included as part of President Lincoln’s funeral train in May 1865, both Pullman and his car experienced national exposure and it wouldn’t be long before they became famous for luxury train travel, states the CHS site.

Two years later in 1867, the Chicago-based Pullman Palace Car Company was established.

"Pullman dining cars allowed for faster cross-country travel because they eliminated the need to stop for meals," states the CHS site.

Back in those days, railways represented high technology, Babuk said.

In fact, innovations in technology developed for accommodating heavier and heavier trains over larger and larger bridges laid important groundwork in the future engineering of skyscrapers, Babuk said.

Inventions developed during the time between the US Civil War and the First World War were, "key to the invention of the modern skyscraper, a title for which Chicago boasts claim," Babuk said, "however, it couldn’t have been done without Vulcan."

This article appeared in the Vulcan Advocate. Copyright 2007 Vulcan Advocate.