Randy Danyluk is a labourer for the Town of Canora. Just like his co-workers, Danyluk takes pride in doing whatever he can to maintain and improve the town’s appearance.
So when the town asked him to restore the old CN motor car outside the CN Station House Museum and Visitor Centre, Danyluk jumped at the opportunity.
Many people who used these motor cars affectionately referred to them as jiggers, said Danyluk.
This model was built by Fairmont Rail Car Company from 1967 to 1986, said Arden Biletsky, Canora CN track supervisor and rail car enthusiast.
It came with a 20 horsepower Onan air cooled engine, said Biletsky, and could push a full rail car with little effort, yet it was light enough so employees could take it off the track in front of rail traffic if needed.
Driving the motor car up and down the tracks was quite pleasant in the summer months, said Biletsky, but it could get quite cold in winter.
“The only heat source was the air cooled engine blowing on your feet,” he said.
Danyluk recalled driving a similar unit to the one he restored back in the 1980s when he and his co-workers were responsible for maintaining 40 miles of track. They would make the 80-mile round trip every day, occasionally reaching top speeds of close to 18 miles an hour.
Motor cars were used until about 20 or 25 years ago, when rail companies started modifying pickup trucks to run on rails, said Danyluk. This made motor cars pretty much obsolete, but ever since then they have been popular among collectors.
Danyluk started working on the motor car as soon as most of the snow melted.
“I started the restoration in February, and worked on it for about 15 to 20 hours per week over the space of two months, in addition to my regular duties,” he said.
The windshield had to be replaced. The body of the motor car is mostly made of fibreglass, which had plenty of cracks in it before the restoration. Danyluk said the fibreglass work was the most time- consuming part of the restoration.
Co-worker, Sheldon Danyluk (no relation) helped out with the wiring for the lights and the flasher on the motor car. Randy says if one comes to check it out at night sometime, there’s a good chance one will see the lights and the flasher working.
After the other restoration work was completed, Danyluk got to do what he considers the fun part of the project, the painting, with some help from co-workers Roger Sabiston and Kevin Malanchuk. They didn’t like the motor car’s original solid orange colour, which had faded badly over time. So they decided to give it the same colour scheme as CN locomotives: orange and black with white striping.
When Danyluk started the motor car restoration, there was an old pair of rail car wheels sitting right in front of it, and another pair sitting in front of the nearby caboose. Instead of just throwing them away, Danyluk and town of Canora foreman Dave Wasyliw came up with the idea to utilize the wheels for an identical pair of benches.
Danyluk used one-by-two-inch wood to make the seats. Even though the benches are built on wheels, he says there is no way a person would roll them around, since each of the solid steel rail wheels weighs well over 1,000 pounds. He has the benches sitting near the CN motor car, outside the CN Station House Museum and Visitor Centre.
