structs a timetable.

It fell to this first Canadian President that the road ever had to
shoulder a load which would have made the wizard Van Horne read up
Hercules. Beatty holds the record for getting through with a programme
that would have puzzled either of his two eminent predecessors in that
office. Shaughnessy at the same age might have done it. Van Horne
never. Yet Beatty never could have built the C.P.R. His brain has no
wizardry in it. He is a co-ordination of facts that knows not the
meaning of magic. He is the most matter-of-fact man in any high
executive position in Canada. The task he undertook was all cut out
for him. Fate decreed that he should take it. He never dreamed of
refusing. And what a task!

The greatest trouble Beatty had to face when he became President was
too much traffic, too little rolling stock, an almost tragic scarcity
of labour and the McAdoo award in wages. Railroading costs were at an
apex before even munitions costs began to be. The collapse of railways
in the United States drove a vast amount of traffic over Canadian
roads. The two younger transcontinental systems were on the verge of
receiverships. The brunt of the burden fell upon the old C.P.R., which
at that time, in spite of the McAdoo awards was making a heavy profit.
The cash value of traffic handled was colossal. War work was wearing
the railways down. New locomotives and cars were hard to get. Orders
could not be placed outside. Canada's railways had to depend on
Canada. Ships could not wait, though submarines could. Freight must
move. Two hard winters nearly paralyzed all the systems. No new lines
were being built. The old lines were wearing out. Canada had the
longest hauls of any nation in the world. Our systems were built for
the long haul. The railway systems of other countries were demoralized
with wastage, low repairs and enormous traffic. Even in short-haul
England of the easy climate, there was railway paralysis. But England
had great gasoline highways and coastal routes when Canada had neither.
It is said in a report of that period, "General Superintendents in
charge of some of the "key" divisions of the big roads have had to work
from 12 to 20 hours a day to keep roadbed, rolling stock and crews up
to top mark." 22,000 Canadian cars were "lost" in the United States in
one winter. What war left of the railways winter did its best to
debilitate. Industry stole transportation labour