Decline of Passenger Trains
By the 1960s, Canadian passenger trains were in serious decline, largely thanks to increased competition from automobiles travelling the then-new Trans-Canada Highway and from airlines. However, the CN aggressively marketed its services, even while CPR was losing interest in operating The Canadian. To help combat the perception that the CPR route through the Rocky Mountains was more scenic, CN in 1964 acquired a set of six ex-Milwaukee Road "Super Dome" cars (rechristened "Sceneramics" by CN) that had formerly seen service on the Olympian Hiawatha. These were placed into service between Winnipeg and Vancouver. But despite CNR's best efforts, ridership continued to decline throughout the 1970s, and the train operated at a loss.
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—Jean De La Bruyère (1645–1696)
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“Conventions, at the present moment, are really menaced. The most striking sign of this is that people are now making unconventionality a social virtue, instead of an unsocial vice. The switches have been opened, and the laden trains must take their chance of a destination.”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)