CNR picture book

     Keith MacKenzie, ed. The History of the Canadian National (1988) In the 1970s and 80s, printing technology improved and became cheaper. Hence a plethora of large picture books appeared, on all kinds of subjects. This is one such. The printing is excellent throughout. Pictures are generally large, clear, and nicely tweaked to improve shadows and highlights. The book is worth a look or two for this reason alone. The text is a mashup of adaptations of some primary and many secondary sources. We get a clear narrative, with very few hints of the skulduggery, political shenanigans, and outright fraud that make the history of railways such a fascinating human story.
     The impetus for the creation of the CNR was a mix of motives. Of course, a politically expedient desire to preserve competition withe the CPR played a role, and the transport demands of the first World War provided the excuse for conglomerating a mess of lines into a single national system. But the CNR was shaped as much by the effective lobbying of private investors to have the government take over their debt. The result was what eventually became a highly efficient operation saddled with enormous debt, which required regular infusions of public cash to prevent a net annual deficit.
     As a crown corporation, the CNR could be used as an instrument of public policy. The CBC and the Transcanada Airlines (later Air Canada) were originally set up as subsidiaries of the CNR. Both the CNR and the airline were eventually privatised, after it became clear that there was a private profit to be made. The book ends its story just before VIA Rail was spun off from the CNR. Since then, CNR has become CN, and has bought and merged with a number of railroads in the USA. It is now the only truly transcontinental railroad in North America, linking the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Gulf of Mexico by rail. Not a bad outcome for a cobbled-up jury rig of bankrupt and nearly bankrupt lines that spent its first decade harmonising a discordant chorus.
     As “the” history of the CNR, incomplete. As a picture book of Canadian railway history, very good. The kind of book one dips into from time to time to satisfy the need for a ferroequinological fix. **½