Canadian Transport Sourcebook

Chapter VIII

Sir William Van Horne

Now bursts upon the scene the bulky form of W. C. Van Horne, "The noblest roman of them all"—the Czar of the C.P.R.

This great magician was a true railway magnate. His biography has already been ably written by Vaughan, but knowing him intimately "on the work," I cannot help contributing my little quota of admiration for so remark a person. He was the most versatile man I have ever encountered. There was hardly any subject upon which he was not well informed. He had a sharp piercing eye and very little escaped his notice. His manner was very abrupt and his methods peculiar, but everything was to the point. The word 'cannot' did not exist in his dictionary. He was a born artist and often when he was talking to me, made sketches on his blotting pad, well worth framing, but which he tore up as fast as he drew them. His oil-paintings and water-colours were numerous and of no mean repute, and he was, too, a wonderful black and white artist.

He was a lover of Art and a great judge of ancient pottery, china and all things beautiful. He could tell you their history, and how, when and where they were made. And, it goes without saying, if there was anything about a railroad that he did not know, it was not worth knowing. What always puzzled me was how in the world, in one lifetime, he had managed to accumulate so much information upon so many subjects. One way I accounted for it was that he never seemed to require any sleep. He used to say to me, "Why do you want to go to bed, it's a waste of time; besides, you don't know what's going on." He knew every game of cards and played them all well. I can remember after an all-night session of poker, when the rest of us were "dead to the world," at 7-0 a.m., Van Horne simply rubbed his eyes and went down to the office, to begin a long day's hard work. He had an iron constitution and did not seem to require any rest. It appeared to me that he was unacquainted with sickness of any kind and could not understand it in others. He was a tremendous worker and expected everybody else to be the same. Although he was always busy, he appeared to have lots of leisure time, but I suppose a perfect organization was the secret of this. He detested all sycophants, and people who were afraid of him; and when it came to engineers, he rather admired the man who had an opinion of his own and the courage to give his reasons for daring to have it, when he appeared before him "on the carpet."

Van Horne always resented our "professional" interference when it happened to clash with his dictatorship, and upon one occasion, after some discussion about the location, he said, "If I could only teach a section man how to run a transit I wouldn't have a single damned engineer on the road."

The first year, under General Rosser, I had about four hundred miles of preliminary line run, as far as Moose Jaw Creek, when Van Horne sent for me and announced in a most autocratic manner that he wanted "The shortest possible commercial line" between Winnipeg and Vancouver, also that he intended to build five hundred miles that Summer, lay the track, and have trains running over it. In discussing the projected location I pointed out that such a line would often run through an infertile country, and made many other objections; but he was adamant and said he did not care what it ran through. He was evidently bound to get there. This determination was no doubt the reason for the more southerly route being adopted, through the Kicking Horse Pass, which afterwards turned out to be so expensive though no doubt of great scenic value. I doubted if he could possibly construct five hundred miles in a short Summer (it was then probably about April), but he scowled at me fiercely, and before I left "the presence" he informed me that "nothing was impossible and if I could show him the road it was all he wanted and if I couldn't he would have my scalp." Thus ended a short but characteristic interview with the great magician! As a matter of fact he did lay about four hundred and eighty miles of track that Summer.

I could almost fill a book with different amusing anecdotes of Van Horne during his reign in the West but will only relate two or three, so eminently characteristic of the man.

They had a Purchasing Agent named Burdock from St. Paul, who came into my office one day unannounced in his shirt-sleeves. He had a fountain pen and three or four pencils in one waistcoat pocket and a toothbrush in the other. In his hand he had a sheaf of my requisitions for our Summer's supply of provisions. In his mouth he had a blue pencil and part of a plug of tobacco. He rapidly checked over my long list of supplies for three large survey parties for six months, blue pencilling everything he did not approve of, murmuring the wile sotto voce—Beans, 3,000 pounds: 2,000 plenty. "Bacon, 2,000 pounds: Nonsense, 1,000 enough." "Butter, never heard of such a thing," and so on down the list. When he had finished he remarked, "There ye are, Mister, I have cut that down about a ton and a half." When this gentleman seemed to be satisfied with the improvements he had made in my menu, I calmly ventured to ask who he was. He replied that he was the chief Purchasing Agent for the Western District. I then enquired on what standard he based the late rapid calculations? He said "he figured 'em out according to the U-nited States Army rations." I remarked that we had no warriors of the United States' Army on the C.P.R. surveys.

After a short discussion I suggested that if that was the way my men were to be fed, perhaps Mr. Burdock would go out and take charge of them, but to this he objected, saying "I aint no engineer"—I offered to overcome his modest scruples by teaching him all the engineering necessary in about twenty-five minutes, if he could spare the time. This suggestion seemed to puzzle him and he gathered up his papers and hastily withdrew. A few days later I met Van Horne in the corridor who asked when I was going to start West? I told him that I understood a Mr. Burdock was going to replace me and take charge of the location. At first he did not see it, but after I had described Burdock's visit, he said, "Where is that fellow, send him to me, you clear out to-morrow morning and I will attend to him." I went west next day and it was several months later when I heard the sequel.

The supplies we received that Summer were never better; every luxury kept coming up, and one fine day I met a man driving a pair of horses and a brand new buckboard who stopped me and asked for Secretan's camp. I told him who I was and took him to the camp nearby. He got down and without a word hauled out all the latest English illustrated papers, two boxes of prime cigars and a keg of old Hudson Bay Rum, which he deposited on the floor of my tent. Then he said, "Oh, you are Secretan, eh?" (I hadn't changed much) "My name is Burdock. Well, how did you find the supplies this Summer?" "Everything very satisfactory," said I. He took a good look at me and them, heaving a heavy sigh, he said, "Withal, you are the man that got me the gold darndest setting out I ever had in my life. That man Van Horne sent for me and he said, 'Are you the God-forsaken idiot who buys the provisions? If so, I'll just give you till six o'clock to-night to ship a car-load of the very best stuff you can find up to Secretan, the engineer at the front; and see here, you can come back at six o'clock and tell me you have shipped it, you understand, but if you have not, you need not come back at all, but just go back to wherever you came from.'"

Van Horne was always lucky and often blundered into the right thing by sheer bull-headed luck, when everything seemed against him. I remember an instance of this when one day he sent for me to his office in Winnipeg and rapidly revolving his chair squinted at me over the top of his pince-nez, at the same time unrolling a profile about one hundred miles at a time, saying, "Look here, some damned fool of an engineer has put in a tunnel up there, and I want you to go and take it out!" I asked if I might be permitted to see where the objectionable tunnel was. He kept rolling and unrolling the profile till he came to the fatal spike which showed a mud tunnel about 900-feet long—somewhere on the Bow River at mileage 942. I mildly suggested that the engineer, whoever he was, had not put the tunnel in for fun. He didn't care what the engineer did it for, but they were not going to build it and delay the rest of the work. "How long do you think it would take to build the cursed thing?" he asked. I guessed about twelve or fourteen months. That settled it. He was not there to build fool tunnels to please a lot of engineers. So perfectly satisfied that the matter was settled and done with, he whirled round to his desk and went on with something else, simply remarking, "Mind you go up there yourself and take that d——d tunnel out. Don't send anybody else."

I asked for the profile, and when I reached the door, paused for a minute and said, "While I'm up there hadn't I better move some of those mountains back, as I think they are too close to the river." The "old man" looked up for a second, said nothing, but I could see the generous proportions of his corporation shaking like jelly. He was convulsed with laughter.

Not being the wizard in the art of changing the topography of the country, I did not even leave Winnipeg, but wired up the particulars of the offensive tunnel to one of my Divisional Engineers who was almost on the spot, and personally, I took care to avoid Van Horne. I found the engineer who had located that fatal tunnel and asked him if it was possible to avoid it or if there was any alternative line. I put many leading questions to him but he was very certain of his facts and assured me that there was no possibility of taking out the tunnel, and ended up by offering to bet his year's pay against mine that neither I nor anybody else could shift the line.

After this interview, it looked rather hopeless, until a week or two later I got a report from my Engineer on the ground, describing how on the previous Sunday, while smoking his pipe and sunning himself on the side hill, he thought he saw a little silvery cascade coming into the Bow River about half a mile below. He explored this crack in the foot-hills, followed the little creek, found it opened up into quite a decent valley, sent for his leveller, ran a hasty trial line over the summit, found the grade was practicable, so kept on till he rejoined the Bow Rover further up and not only took out the objectionable tunnel but shortened the main line some mile and a half. Such was Van Horne's luck!