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Caption: So I was gifted a collection of slides that from all evidence before me seemed to belong to a feller named R.A. Matthews of Biggar Saskachewan. Somehow this collection ended up in Guelph at a second hand store, a buddy (not a fan) bought it for me and gave me it all for my birthday some years ago. He paid around $30 for it all. There's about 1000 slides in the collection, mostly photos taken by the photographer, all in numerical order and all are CN or CN related (including VIA) but he also traded a ton with others in order to fill the collection in. It's a wonderful time capsule of what CN's roster was in the 1970's and 1980's and is mostly complete from a locomotive model perspective. However, I have very little to go on - can anyone help fill in the blanks on who R.A. Matthews is and is he still around? Please comment below or send me a private message as required because google comes up blank.. as did a couple inquiries with some local fans in Ontario.
Either way, this is one of the things that intrigued me, the CN slugs that are still with us in the 200 and 500 series seemed to have mothers also in the same number series. Pictured is CN GP38 213 which according to one source is now CN 7513. Photographed at Walker Yard in Edmonton. Photo scan by Jacob Patterson, Editing by me.
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Steve there was a Bill Matthews in Hamilton. He has been dead for a long time.John Spring knew him as he was a member of the HO club in Hamilton.
Hi Steve – There was a Ray A. Matthews out of Mission BC in the nineties. He was with a group that I shot with for awhile. Check out the Pacific Western Railway Systems website. He had published a few volumes called: The Canadian National in the West.
If Ray lived in biggar…. might be him.
Ray was a great guy…..back in the day, the CN SIG would have a ” CN in the West” day every year on the longest day of the year and I remember Ray, a retired CN engineer, showing us all kinds of thins through the Yellowhead pass area.
Steve, I did a little stint with CN in the early 80′s at that time it was still referred as “Calder Yard”. Not sure when it became Walker
The renaming was just about when Ross Walker, the VP for the west, retired.
It was re-named to Walker in 1994 and the city will be Edmonton. Calder was absorbed to become a community of Edmonton in 1917, I believe. Around the same time CN came into existence.
Thanks – the slide says “Calder Alberta” so I went with that.
Was Ray resident in Biggar Sask?The 1978 slides are stamped with his name and address at a PO box in Biggar Sask.
And they are only 1975-1988 or so so I don’t think this is the feller that shot it in the 1950′s..
There’s also a lot of R.J. Gallagher photos in here among others who he clearly traded with to fill his holes.