ROGER'S FIRST ASSIGNMENT FOR ME was to send TV stations and newspapers across the country a dozen coloured photos of Canadian National's newest rolling stock. In its library I identified 150 media, culled the best pix the photography studio had, ordered 155 sets of 8 X 10 prints. Our French soul, Bernard Legaré, translated captions, the printing shop printed. Red three-ring binders with plastic sleeves came from CN's stationery supplier. After everything was assembled by Mireille, the secretary supporting Roger and me, the mail room picked it up and sent it.
All that took only five working days.
The 150 Canadian media were a start on promoting CN's input to Expo 86. I added 250 addresses in other countries. The fair's overall theme was "Transportation and Communications". CN focused on "Carrying Things" by various means.
The railway's $10 million paid for many private initiatives. Some creators (e.g. architects, fashion designers) wanted total secrecy except from CN's assistant vice president for Expo 86 (avp86), who arranged their funding. He knew little about each, had no written proposals or reports to show me, so I had to phone principals all over the country. Most treated me as if I were a nosy competitor. They wanted avp86 to assure them I was legitimate. He ignored my suggestion that he introduce me to them somehow, slowing my work.
My first press kit went out in late 1985. The fourth, issued just after the fair opened on May 2 of '86, contained a fact sheet and eight articles. They were entitled The CN pavilion, CN pavilion commissioner, CN pavilion staff uniforms, Transitions in IMAX 3D, Motion exhibits, Interactive videos operate motion figures, Time-line, and Rolling billboards.
The "motion figures" were 10-metre-high interactive gadgets with multiple controls; they demonstrated the laws of motion. Newton's Laws of Motion according to CN's exhibit were uniform, circular, accelerating, oscillatory. Four! Googling "Newton's Laws of Motion" in 2016, I found only three: Inertia, acceleration, action-reaction.
The "billboards" were a locomotive, four box cars and an intermodal semi-trailer used in regular service but decorated in Expo 86's brilliant colours.
Preparing the press kit required comprehending a fabulous range of technical details.Transitions, which introduced two-camera IMAX technology to the world, was the most complex:
"The 20-minute film sketches the history and future of how goods and messages are moved about, with scenes ranging from voyageurs in birchbark canoes to the high technology of satellite communications.
"With the stunning true-to-life 3D effect achieved by a 'double camera' designed by cinematographer Ernest McNabb of the National Film Board, and built by Imax Systems Corporation of Canada, Transitions begins with an autumn lakeside scene from which a branch of golden leaves extends right into the audience -- there are gasps, hands reach out to touch them. The Fraser Canyon segment shows a CN freight locomotive advancing into the 500-seat theatre, then gives the audience a track-level view of magnificent surroundings.
"The double camera has two 70-mm lenses related to a 50/50 mirror in such a way that one records through it while the other receives a reflected image, their perspectives separated like those of human eyes. To align the images into a single three-dimensional one, the CN IMAX 3D Theatre supplies polarizing glasses....
"A four-man crew operated the train; it took 10 to maintain, direct, and run the unique camera."
I wrote that after the first screening of Transitions on March 17, 1986, an unforgettable St. Patrick's Day morning. As a couple of men crossed paths outside my cubicle, one asked the other if he was "going up to see Transitions". I'd heard there would be a screening at the National Film Board (NFB), but not when.
The reply was "I reserved a fleet car for ten-fifteen. Wanna lift?"
I was not going to be left out!
I told Roger I'd like to attend. He hesitated, then said "If it's okay with Wilbur, sure." That man had irritated me once: When he came to thank me for something I wrote I was sitting at my desk and he patted the top of my head, saying I was "a good girl". I was too shocked to respond. As I hurried toward his office on that St. Paddy's Day I thought, I am older than Roger, taller than Wilbur, and I've worked hard on this project!
I told Wilbur "Roger says I can go to the screening. What time does it start?"
He looked uncomfortable as he said "Eleven".
What did Dorothy, the 20-year veteran, know? That the boys doing communications for CN had a long-standing tradition of toasting Ireland's patron saint at Magnan's Tavern, which had a men-only policy. The secrecy arose from the fact that "the boys" didn't know how to get rid of me after the screening. Most knew how to deal with wives, daughters, secretaries, but not with the few women in CN management.
At the NFB, Transitions rolled for 20 minutes, a stunningly beautiful film. Then I put on my coat, called a cab, and outlined my press kit article on the way to lunch with Dorothy.
CN's archivist, Ken Mackenzie, and I often coffeed in Central Station. He and his wife had me to their home for gardening and suppers. Soon after the screening he talked about a short line in New England that CN acquired when it took over the Grand Trunk Railway in 1932.
CN was selling the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad's 19th-Century office building in Portland, Maine. Ken would retrieve its records and add them to the CN collection in the Public Archives of Canada (PAC) in Ottawa. First, though, he would display some items in PAC's spacious lobby for a couple of months.
The two huge Minute and transfer books were magnificent! I suggested that they deserved a ceremonial farewell, a formal presentation to PAC. July 15 would be appropriate, the eve of the opening of Ken's exhibit.
Ottawa residents avoid its hot, humid summers if possible, leaving media without news. I told Ken we could send hundreds of impressive invitations to a reception for politicians, historians, railfan clubs, media, and get lots of coverage, but fewer than a hundred would come to nibble and sip.
He liked the idea. My proposal, with a budget of $1700, was accepted.
Avp86 was one of few senior managers not vacationing in mid-July, so he would present the four tomes to Jean-Pierre Wallot, Canada's National Archivist. Since Ottawa was in the French-speaking St. Lawrence Region of CN, I informed Public Affairs there what HQ was planning and Manager Jean-Guy Brodeur became the contact in my press releases.
Then the budget soared. Instead of using his lifetime pass on VIA Rail* to go Montreal-Ottawa-return on July 15th with others from HQ, avp86 decided to drive with his wife. (Add expense account mileage.) He hadn't seen a friend in CN Quebec City for a while so he invited him and his wife. (Add their transportation.) Because CN owned Ottawa's Chateau Laurier hotel and had a huge suite, the two couples would dine there after the reception, with M. Wallot and other guests. (Add a room service dinner for 10.) The CN couples would overnight in the Chateau. (Add rooms and breakfasts.)
My $1700 budget ballooned to $7000. I was annoyed, and told Roger. He looked uncomfortable.
Entitlement underlay the cultures of many corporations that grew huge during Canada's boom years after World War II. Jobs for life were the norm for men hired around 1940. They served in World War II knowing their jobs would be waiting if they returned, then climbed organizational ladders expecting ever better "perks" in return for lifelong loyalty.
In 1986 the president and Chief Operating Officer of CN, Ron E. Lawless, was an example. He had joined CN Express in 1941 as a messenger and served in the Royal Canadian Air Force 1943-46.
The Chief Executive Officer, Maurice LeClair, was an outsider. Politicians wanted CN privatized and he was qualified to prepare it. By 1985 his cost-cutting measures were biting everyone: Expense accounts must be backed up by invoices, budgets by proposals.... One directive bluntly ordered managers not to take each other out for lunch.
There was so much I would have discussed with Dad. At the Tely, at CN, people didn't practice moderation, respect their employers' money, cooperate honestly to benefit everyone. They enjoyed extraordinarily good jobs but did not in fact appreciate them.
*Canada's two transcontinental railroads stopped liking passengers after World War II because people showed they preferred cars and planes. Those who kept using trains complained when they didn't receive the same service and comforts as before. Cargo never complained and paid much better. When the federal government created VIA Rail in 1977 for passengers only, employees and pensioners of CN and Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) had their lifetime train passes transferred to it.
CHAPTER 62 of GLIMPSES -- 30