1961, Cadets arriving at Vernon's CNR train station, Vernon, BC

1961, Cadets arriving at Vernon's CNR train station, Vernon, BC
3 min 03 secs, 16mm 2k digital scan
Cadets have been training at Vernon Military Camp since 1949, getting them here from all across the country has always been a fascinating logistical operation. from 1949 to the early 1960s, passenger trains were the solution. This is a brief and interesting glimpse of the late morning of 11 July 1961 with the arrival of the Canadian National Railway train from Vancouver.
The CNR passenger train special arrives at Vernon’s train station from Vancouver, waiting on the platform to greet the arriving cadets, is the commanding officer of the camp Brigadier Joe Bishop, LCol D.J. Hunden, Mayor Frank Becker and recently promoted LCol Vince Lilley. Like wartime troop trains that were so familiar a generation earlier, this train disembarks some 400 army cadets from the lower mainland and Vancouver island after an overnight transit from Vancouver. The cadets come from Vancouver and Victoria but also small towns like Port Alberni, Powell River, Duncan and Prince Rupert. There’s a wealth of information in the background, the Coldstream Hotel, McDowell Motors and Texaco service station in their art deco building, and the roof-line of one of the fruit packing houses behind the train. And yes, the train has blocked 32nd avenue, no doubt a little frustrating for motorists. Lined up on 29th Street are a dozen and half stake trucks from Western Command operated by regular force and reserve soldiers, ready to transport the cadets and their kit up to the camp for six weeks of training under the hot Okanagan sun. Within a few years, the cadet train specials would be no more, replaced by faster and more economical chartered passenger planes and highway buses.
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episode 351
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[@jimrussell678]

Was there waiting for the arrivals. Great find!

[@thomasrichard890]

Arrived in the back of a deuce and a half in 1967......

[@markfisher8206]

I was there in 64 in my seaforth kilt! Arrived at midnight , train delayed ,open deuce and a half’s no three tons!

[@Rifleman62]

Mark Fisher, PPCLI, Prairie Area HQ???

[@plhought]

Very cool!