CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — Myron Matheson started working his dream job at the age of 19.
He had watched trains snake through his hometown of Breadalbane as a kid and became convinced his future lay in the railways. At 16, he had managed to start training in telegraphy, even though he was still too young to work in the industry.
"I had to go into the station and convince the agent to teach me telegraphy. I had to pay him for that,” Matheson explains over coffee at the Receiver Brass shop.
"To me it was just totally captivating. I never thought of working at any other job."
In 1950, Matheson began working as a telegraph operator for Canadian National Railway, communicating to dispatchers and conductors using Morse code. Fresh out of high school, he became a station agent, a role that meant he was a representative of the company.
“All the business that was done, was done through me. I was collecting money, in some cases a lot of money!" Matheson said.
Matheson is taking part in a celebration marking 100 years of history of CN in Charlottetown this weekend. The celebration features a dinner for customers and retirees at the Confederation Centre. CN is also hosting a free public concert on Saturday night on Victoria Row, featuring Patrick Ledwell’s Island Review and the Montreal-based 1945 The Band.
CN is hosting events marking its centennial across the country, from Halifax to Vancouver, emphasizing the role the company has had in the development of Canadian industry.
For Matheson, the railway industry and its workers played a pivotal role in the history of P.E.I. During the 1950s and 60s, the railroad was often the key means of transportation for both passengers and goods, despite well-developed road networks.
“All along the lines, these grocery stores would get all their supplies in by train. In the winter time, the roads weren't even plowed, most of the time," he said.
Matheson would go on to work all over the country as a CN manager in Moncton, Montreal, Edmonton and elsewhere.
Today, unlike in most provinces, the railroad no longer exists in P.E.I. By the late 1980s, freight traffic on trains had slowed to a crawl. Most goods were transported through trucking companies, and passenger travel had been phased out in the mid 1960s. The railroad tracks were torn up and eventually converted to what is now the Confederation Trail.
But key landmarks from the railroad era are still everywhere in P.E.I. today, according to Sean Finn, executive vice-president of corporate services for CN.
"There's a lot of history on the Island,” Finn said.
“You go to Mount Stewart, you go to Bathurst, P.E.I., Kensington, they continue to have the locomotives there. You can see a lot of the history of the railway through the buildings on the Island.”
Finn points to landmarks in Charlottetown, such as the sandstone offices of the Workers Compensation Board of P.E.I. on Weymouth Street, which is the site of the former CNR railway station. The CN car shop still stands today along the waterfront and is expected to be re-opened as an urban food market. Nearby, the former brass shop, which was constructed in 1876, now houses the popular Receiver Coffee shop.
Over 1,000 retirees from CN currently live on the Island, including employees of the former Cape Tormentine ferry.
The company, one of the largest corporations in the country, also continues to have a substantial philanthropic footprint on P.E.I. CN is a sponsor of the Confederation Centre of the Arts and recently donated $100,000 to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Foundation. The company has also donated thousands to the Elmira Railway Museum and has been sponsoring the Confederation Players Program for the last four years.
But for former employees like Matheson, CN’s history is less about buildings and supply networks. For Matheson, the railroad industry had its own culture that kept people on the job for their entire working lives. Some colleagues he knew had as many as four generations of their families working in the industry.
"Railroading back in the 40s and 50s was not a job, it was a way of life.” Matheson said.
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