They expected to be in Toronto the next day. It took them almost three days. During part of that time some of them subsisted on on an ancient, dried up meat pie discovered in the bottom of a suitcase and bites from shared apples.
When they reached Prescott, Ont. at dawn the next morning, snow was falling gently. Then the weather changed. The snow became gritty,stinging pellets whipped into a fury by high wind. Drifts began to cover the track. Near Gananoque, the train came to an abrupt halt, stuck fast in the snow.
A freight train pulled up. Its locomotive was commandeered. With one locomotive pulling and one pushing they tried to get the heavy passenger train moving. As Myles Pennington wrote later, the two locomotives puffed and screemed but no progress was made. They gave it up, and the conductor then started of with one locomotive for Gananoque (the other locomotive had "died in harness") and was now useless. A mile down the track, the conductor had to crawl out into the snow and struggle on by foot.
At Gananoque the conductor telegraphed to Kingston for help. A relief train started out. It got stuck on the otherside of Gananoque. The conductor then hired horses and sleighs, drove to the immobilized relief train, took of the food supplies, then headed back to the passenger train.
While he was away, the waiting passengers had been taking stock of their provisions. It was't encouraging. Apart from the dried up pies, there wasn't much, and what there was they put aside for the children aboard.
Male passengers vounteered to set out for farm houses glimpsed through the driving snow. One sank into the snow up to his waist, another froze an ear, but they managed to return with some food and tea.
They were now facing a second night on the train. Talk became gloomy. It was not a cheerful group that tried to sleep while the cars rocked to and fro in the wind and snow continued to pile up around them.
The next morning the sleighs arrived. According to Pennington, "a hugh picnic" took place-a picnic like no other that any of them ever experienced. He remembered how ravenously they fell upon the "gigantic sandwiches," tossing aside "all customs of civilized society" and using teeth and fingers in place of knives and forks.
They were just finishing when whistles were heard. Up came 3 locomotives and a snow plow. With this help they made it to Kingston by supper time. There the Grand Trunk gave them a free meal. Later that night, they were settled in their berths, and once mor on their way to Toronto. They thought their ordeal was over. It wasn't.
At 2a.m, stentorian voices shouted to them to get up, dress and get out. Ahead were tw stalled locomotives, but on the other side of the locomotives, was a train that would take them on. They had to walk through the dift carring their luggage.
They finally reached Toronto before noon, 62 hours after leaving Montreal.
* * *
Writing toward the end of the 19th century, Pennington, the first general traffic agent of the Grand Trunk Railway in Canada, recalled how there had once been strong objections to sleeping cars on the ground of morality. He remembered when superintendents had met "in solemn conclave" to consider the introduction of sleeping cars here. Such cars had recently been put into service on some US railway lines but had,it was noted, became infested with bad characters.
The GTR finally decided to install bunks or benches down the length of a car but no curtains or dividions between them. Such accomodations could not have been particulary comfortable-only one rug and a small pillow were issued to each passenger.
Over the years improvements were made until Pennington's word, "the Pullman car made its appearance in all its glory." Each car was then put incharge of it's own conductor. The bugbear as to the morality question "was eventually quashed."
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