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  BIENFAIT   CNR  TRAIN  STATION
            Manitoba and Saskatchewan
            (M&S) Coal Company
            Locomotive on right

THIS IS A VIEW OF THE PICTURE ABOVE
IN 1999
JUST EAST OF THE OLD CNR STATION LOCATION

            The CPR Train station has been moved to the middle of the town
            on Highway 18, and is used as the Bienfait Museum

            In the station, where the signals are in the picture,
 at the telegraph operators station,
             is where the murder of Mr. Matoff took place
            during the Rum Running days in Bienfait.
            He was the brother-in-law of Bronfman,
            known in the Bienfait area for running
            the local Boozorium.  The Boozorium was supposed
            to be used to export liquor to another province.
            But undoubtedly was used as a warehouse to
            smuggle booze to the states during the prohibition, and
afterwards as well.  They had stockpiled huge amounts
of whiskey ready for the end of prohibition, which they
trucked into the states legally at that point.
They overwhelmed the markets and made a fortune.
            The Bronfman family used the earnings from this and
            other Boozoriums, to develop the Seagram Empire.

As an aside, My brother Wayne, claims to this day
that there was bottles of booze hidden behind the cellar
in our farmhouse, 1 mile south of Bienfait, placed
there by a previous renter of the place.  When the
building was demolished I don't believe they found anything.
But who knows what happened to them?
It's a mystery to this day!

M&S LOCOMOTIVE
#3522'S LAST RUN
PICTURES WERE TAKEN FROM SLIDES,  SO FOCUS IS POOR

OLD TRAIN MAKING IT'S LAST RUN
 

MAKING ITS LAST CROSSING
1968
 

M&S #3522 READY TO BE PARKED
AND PUT ON DISPLAY
AT THE END OF MAIN STREET IN BIENFAIT
1968

I have now located locomotive M&S locomotive #6947
originally CPR locomotive #1737, built in 1908,
renumbered to #3537 in 1913,
and then in Sept 1928 to #6947
It was retired in 1968 same as #3522 above.
It was donated to the
Alberta Pioneer Railway Association in 1970
They proceeded to sell it in 1997 to a company in Sandon BC
who are rebuilding it for a commercial display.
I wonder if this was the intension
 of the M&S donators at that time?
Imagine they would have sold it rather than donated it,
if they would have known.
can't relive history!
The good news is it will be a working model
in Sandon B.C.

July 2007- An Email and picture from Colleen Spence

Place of Residence = DeWinton, AB, Canada

My grandfather, William (Bill) Henry RIGATE b. 1877, was the Station Agent for the railway there.  I thought he was with the CNR, but from your website, it might have been the CPR.  He was born in England and worked on the railway in Gravesend, Kent, England.  He came over to Canada in 1912 to pursue his work here on the railway.  My grandmother, Ellen Emma RIGATE (DAINES) b. 1879, followed a little later along with 2 children.  All together they had 5 children - John (Jack) b. 1903, Doris b. 1909 (my mother), Joyce b. 1911, Stella b. 1916 in D'Arcy, Sask. and Margaret b. 1920 in Netherhill, Sask.  I am not sure the exact years grandpa was working in Bienfait, but I do have a picture of the Bienfait station. The children attended a school in Bienfait and I have a picture of it.  On the picture is written 'Public School Bienfait', but of course NO DATE!  My grandmother died in Bienfait in 1929.  I believe!  she is buried in Bienfait and I have a picture of her tombstone.

William Rigate and his family 1932, CNR station
(note- William's 2nd wife in this picture)

Note- this is a picture of the CNR station
 so no doubt he was Station Agent of the CNR,
not CPR, as Colleen assumed from my web page, in her email above.

1916 Station Agent was Charles Scott
age 51, b- Scotland