Reprinted from Decks Awash, Volume 10, Number 4, August 1981
I’ve been working on the railroad
Raymond John Lahey
Raymond John Lahey was born in South Dildo in 1903 and entered the service of the Reid Newfoundland Railway in 1916 at the age of 13. At his home at St. John’s Mr. Lahey recounts some impressions of his 52-year career on the railway.
“I left school at a very early age, and getting a job then was the ambition of just about everybody. The alternative to going fishing was to get what we considered a good job as a telegraph operator with the railway.” He explains that he entered the service of the railway in 1916 learning telegraphy at the New Harbour station five miles from his home.
“I didn’t go on the payroll until October 1918, and in those days there was an established route of promotion. First you went night operator, then station agent, and I guess a few of us were lucky enough to be picked as train dispatchers. That was, for a young fellow, the ultimate goal at that time,” he adds. Ray Lahey’s first post was at the Terra Nova Station now located at the boundary of Newfoundland’s first National Park. He lived alone at the station, but there were four section men who lived at Port Blandford. He stayed two years at the, abandoned Humber Lumber Company staff house which had been taken over by the railway after the company had terminated woods operations in the area.
“You worked seven days, 24 hours if necessary. The five-day week wasn’t even a dream in those days,” he recalls. “The salary was $29.70 a month after they deducted 30 cents for medical expenses. And I was darn glad to get it.” Although the area would later become a major centre for the A.N.D. Company woods’ activities, Ray’s only company in 1918 was the occasional trapper or hunter who carried his caribou to the railway to be sold in St. John’s.
Promoted to station agent in 1919, Ray was moved to Northern Bight Station and subsequently to Holyrood, Adams Cove, and Spaniard’s Bay. He was summoned to St. John’s Dispatching office in June 1923.
“As a station agent at Northern Bight we sold tickets. It wasn’t a busy station, but of course we had to do freight charging and shipping and report train-operation work through the station. I remember one time — it was in 1919 or 1920 during a snowstorm, we didn’t see a train for about three weeks. The first train that came through was distributing supplies to the isolated railroaders who were snowbound. At that time if people came up from remote communities to catch the train they didn’t mind sitting around for 24 hours. They were supplied with all the coal they needed to keep them warm, so it wasn’t looked on as a hardship. But I haven’t seen that kind of winter in years.”
After Ray Lahey had warmed up to the old memories of life on the railway he ventured a few comments on the former Bay de Verde Railway where he was stationed at Adams Cove for a year and a half.
“The Bay de Verde Branch was built with a lot of lofty expectations by very forceful politicians, but I don’t think the traffic was ever there for a railway. They closed the branch in wintertime because, as you know, that shore is very exposed and the traffic was not enough to warrant the snowfighting they had to do. They would move a lot of fish and partridgeberries in the fall but really there was nothing to justify a railway. Of course, there were a certain number of passengers because there were few roads.”
To sustain his argument Mr. Lahey quoted some statistics on railway expenses compiled during his years as a dispatcher at St. John’s.
“In 1926, the cost of a sleeping car would have been $30,000, a dining car $15,000, a first-class car $12,000 and a second-class car $10,000.” He explains that the only difference between the first-class and second-class car was that the former had upholstered seats and the latter had hardwood ones. “The expense was tremendous when you consider that the fare from Holyrood to St. John’s was $1.50 first class and 90 cents second class.”
Mr. Lahey who worked as chief dispatcher and chairman of the train-scheduling committee disagrees that the slow pace of the train contributed to the decline in its use and subsequent loss of needed revenues.
“The schedule was usually off,” he chuckles, “but you have to consider the tremendous frequency of stops. For instance, between St. John’s and Clarenville, we had ten regular stops as early as 1916. And then, of course, there was mail, making an awful lot of stops for pick-up and delivery. The purpose of operating a train was to take away the isolation. And, in its day, it was more than efficient.”
Mr. Lahey explains that because a train dispatcher was responsible for the movement of trains along the various lines he could see many changes coming in the railway before policy changes were made.
“In the twenties we had two daily passenger trains as well as a daily freight train to Carbonear. There were no highways, or motor cars. Over the years that business was phased out. That was the first big impact of highways. That was the beginning of the end.” Mr. Lahey speaks about the effects of the increased freight and passenger traffic during the second World War. “The reason that equipment fell into disrepair was because materials were just not available.”
“After the War there was a big revolution in travel, the airways came in, there was an increase in truck and steamer traffic. All of this affected the freight and the passenger railway traffic. I’ve always felt that the railway never abandoned the travelling public. It was the other way around. And it’s difficult to compete with an ocean-going steamer, because we can’t make a fast railway here, you can forget that idea. We’ve reached the stage in the world today where time means something. Back in the twenties to the forties Newfoundland had a much slower pace, nobody was in a hurry; but now everybody’s in a hurry. Who wants to spend two days to get to North Sydney?”
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Transcribed by Wanda Garrett, January 2016
These transcriptions may contain human errors. As always, confirm these as you would any other source material.