The following article is reprinted from the April 1990 issue of "CP Rail News”.

Employee decorated car

By Jane Mudry

Coquitlam, B.C. – The Vancouver division didn’t have to look too far when it came to finding a graphic artist to paint the murals on the new safety car.

Locomotive Engineer Brent Sewell, son of former Canyon division Superintendent Ted Sewell, was given the nod because his talent as a graphic artist is well known.

‘For the last three years, I’ve designed the Vancouver division crest.  When this job came up, John Laing, who was assistant superintendent here, asked me if I would be interested. I jumped at the chance. It is really nice to be recognized,” Mr. Sewell said. He estimates the work took him more than 200 hours.

Mr. Sewell was given some assistance by his friend, Jan Kreuger, a professional sign painter.  Mr. Kreuger was able to provide some time saving advice.

Creation of the murals was a step-by-step process beginning with a freehand sketch.  The silhouette was placed on a projector, much like the ones used for overhead transparencies, and the image projected onto a large piece of paper to a height of five feet.  Mr. Sewell would then painstakingly trace the silhouette.

The next stage involved perforating the outline of the silhouette, affixing it to the car and transferring is using chalk.  The final step was painting in the mural.

“It took about eight hours to paint each mural on the car.  It really was a big job, but I certainly enjoyed it.  The workers depicted are a locomotive engineer, trainman, carman, sectionman, switch maintainer, and dispatcher”.