Vancouver Islanders receive their Christmas parcels on time.
"1947::Canadian Pacific Railway's Cargo-Passenger Ship Beaverford Carrying a Record Load"
Photo Clip: Victoria Daily Times (1947)
Victoria, British Columbia
On November 23, 1947, the Canadian Pacific ship Beaverford left Montreal for Liverpool. In addition to its passengers and a heavy deck-load of logs, it carried a record shipment of Christmas mail for Britain.
Nearly 20,000 parcels weighing 800 tons were packed 25 feet deep in the ship's hold to be sailed across the Atlantic. It was one ship of several that had left for Britain in the course of one week, carrying Christmas parcels weighing nearly 4,000 tons in total. Handling these mammoth shipments required 123 mail cars, the equivalent of a train almost 2.5 kilometres long.
"1947::Fixing and Sorting Christmas Parcel Overflow in Victoria's Bay Street Armoury"
Photo Clip: Victoria Daily Times (1947)
Victoria, British Columbia
Closer to home, a record number of Christmas parcels arrived at Victoria's docks for Vancouver Island residents. The post office became so overwhelmed that the Bay Street Armoury was made available to house and sort the overflow of parcels. Postal clerks worked around the clock, fixing all the damaged packages they could. When all the parcels were finally repaired and sorted, they were returned to the Post Office for distribution in Victoria or taken directly to the Esquimalt & Nanaimo train station for delivery to locations up-island. All packages arrived on time for Christmas morning.
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