Biographie Lafleur Rejean

THE PEOPLE OF THE THURSO AND NATION VALLEY RAILWAY

"Pick up the broom and sweep the floor"
Those were the first words of English that Gaétan Lafleur ever learned! As a young lad he was paired with Park Smith who had had many jobs on the railway, including steam shovel operator and locomotive engineer. Park claimed that he did not speak French because he was too old to learn and, for that reason, everyone who worked with him had to learn English. He was very patient and helped the younger lads improve their language skills. One word that gave Gaétan particular difficulty was "sawmill". This was an important word for the TNVR and Park had Gaétan repeat it over and over again on their many trips together. Park always felt that he was in the right and had great difficulty in accepting blame. It was always the brake that had not come on properly or some other unexpected problem that created the difficulty and he became adept at talking his way out of discipline. The strange thing about Park was that he was able to speak passable French, but only over a drink or two.

Damien Lafleur was brought up in Fassett, Québec, another small lumber community on the Ottawa River. He came to Thurso to oversee the railway operation for the Singer Company on April 27, 1927 and stayed to make Thurso his home. He saw the opening of the line to its farthest extent. He retired in 1964 and handed over to his son Gaétan. Always known as Diamond, he ran the railway with an iron fist although he was a fair man. Photographs portray him as a "hands on" type of person who would not expect anybody to do anything that he wouldn't, or couldn't, do himself. There was little that happened on the railway that he didn't know about.
When Gaétan Lafleur took over the railway from his father in 1964 he had some very definite ideas as to how the railway should be run and very quickly made changes. These included the dropping of the caboose and, perhaps more important, the use of the heavier 70 ton locomotives on the north end of the line. However, Gaétan was not designated the heir apparent to the top job. He had to earn it. He started on the railway as a young lad and did just about every job on it. He was ready when the time came to take over having had a thorough grounding of every aspect of operation and maintenance. Gaétan is a good example of the attitude and approach that made the TNVR a competitive force well into the 1980s. If there was a problem they would think it through and talk it out among themselves. When asked how he decided to install the switchless sidings for the maintenance of way equipment all Gaétan could say was that he had been having a problem in clearing the larger pieces of equipment to allow the log trains to pass. What was ideally required was a series of short sidings at close intervals. However, sidings require switches that are expensive and need maintenance. In any case the railway didn't have spare switches and new ones couldn't be justified for such a purpose. It took some thought before the solution became apparent but it was applied with typical TNVR ingenuity. The solution came from a practical understanding rather than an attempt to apply somebody else's answer gleaned from book learning.

 Gaétan has two sons and both were trained in the ways of the TNVR. The elder, Claude, worked as a brakeman and acquired expert welding skills in the Car Shop. When the line had to be inspected on a Sunday in readiness for operation on Monday it was very often Claude who would find himself in the Québec bush looking for track defects. He left the railway in 1985 to work at Thurso Pulp and Paper. His brother, Réjean, learned railroading the hard way, as a switchman in the Thurso yard, before he left school. He never worked full time on the railway although his handiwork with a paintbrush was well appreciated. One summer he was given some silver paint and told to paint the bridges. On another occasion he was let loose on the locomotives with some yellow paint. He spiffied up the racing stripes and even painted the couplers. Another member of the Lafleur family who was closely concerned with the railway was Réjean Lafleur, the father of Guy Lafleur, the hockey player. Réjean was a clerk at camp 15 when the German internees were working on the railway. He was officially designated a guard but claims he had nothing to do with the incident at Thurso in which many of the men received more than they bargained for! Réjean later moved to Thurso and retired from the Company in 1976.

One should not forget Gaétan's wife Pat. Her father, Joseph Lalonde, also worked on the railway, in fact he died of natural causes on the running board of one of the locomotives in the Thurso yard. Pat knew almost as much about the TNVR as anyone and she would frequently act as radio operator passing on messages to people on the line. One wonders how many of her excellent meals have been spoilt by railway business.

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Autre article intéressant:  Voir Damien Lafleur