The Pacific was built in 1924 as a business car for railway executives. In the summer of 1939, along with her sister car the Atlantic, she played a remarkable role in Canadian history and world politics.

The Pacific was car #4 in the train that took King George VI and the Queen Mother across Canada on the historic Royal Tour. It was an event like no other the country had ever seen and one of the most effective political campaigns in raising support for the Second World War and for the political future of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. It was along that route, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, that King George made his first successful major speech after years of work to overcome a stutter. That moment in history was re-enacted for a modern generation in the 2010 movie, The King’s Speech.

By the 1960s, airplanes had taken over as the preferred mode of business transportation. When the Pacific became part of the Mother Parkers’ family in the 1970s, it was one of the last privately-owned moving rail cars in North America.

“For more than two decades, the travelling Pacific rail car was a part of our family and our family’s business. We enjoyed taking holidays to many places in Canada, from Vancouver to Halifax to Moosonee, always with a wonderful view from the Pacific’s large observation windows.”
Michael & Paul Higgins.

The Pacific enjoyed its last journey on the rails in 2000 on a trip to Ottawa. It was retired to a railway siding behind the Mother Parkers Ajax plant, a perfect spot for a piece of Canadiana and one that is such an important part of Mother Parkers’ 100 years of history!