CN retiree honoured Saturday

Ken Johnston
Editor

After a wonderful roast beef dinner about 100 people honoured Canadian National Railway retiree Tom McCormick last Saturday evening at the Rainy River Community Centre.
McCormick first hired on with CNR in 1965 and worked as a conductor. He then left the railway for a couple of years but came back to it in 1975 as a conductor. In 1980 he was promoted to locomotive engineer, a job he held until January of 2002 when he retired.
He worked in Toronto, Windsor, Hamilton, Fort Erie, London, Hornpayne, Sioux Lookout, Gillam, Thunder Bay, Regina (Saskatchewan) and Rainy River on several different runs.
McCormick received accolades and congratulations from many people Saturday. Richard Short represented CNR and brought greetings and best wishes from the company. Short is the CN Track Supervisor in this area. Gord Hoskins the local chair of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers offered best wishes on behalf of his union brothers. Hoskins also noted that he had met some really good story tellers over the years but that McCormick took the cake. Hoskins then presented McCormick with a cake.
Jamie Peterson presented McCormick with a beautiful scrawl-saw picture of a steam engine. Her father, another CNR employee does the work as a hobby. Emcee Ralph Armstrong noted that Barry Henry, the general chair of the United Transportation Union, saw some of Peterson’s work and began ordering it for retirees. Armstrong brought special congratulations to McCormick from Henry and the rest of the local UTU. He also read a letter from UTU Vice-president John Armstrong who reminisced about many of the great discussions he had with McCormick, noting, “We debated which one of us would run the railway the best if only we were made president for a day.” He offered McCormick all the best.
The most emotional presentation of the evening was not to McCormick but actually from his wife Joanne. She noted that Tom’s retirement was forced upon them when his health suddenly deteriorated last year. She emotionally thanked all the union members for their support in the past year. “Thanks to the brothers. This is truly a family.” She then presented everyone with something from her heart; homemade butter tarts that she made herself.
Tom himself thanked everyone for coming and said, “Of all the places I worked in 37 years the best bunch of guys was in Rainy River.”
He was presented with gifts from the local CNR retirement committee and the evening was capped off with music and dancing.