Subseries consists of records and ephemera related to employment with the Canadian Pacific Railway since the company's inception in 1881. During the construction of the transcontinental railway, many of these employees were Chinese immigrants, who were often assigned the most dangerous jobs. Following the completion of the railway, the C.P.R. employed workers as passenger agents, train operators, steamship captains, cooks, engineers, stewards, and many other occupations. Many of the materials in this subseries were produced as reference materials for employee use, such as lists of equipment carried on trains, designating numbers for train stations, or telegraph codes
These records include employee handbooks, operating rules for employees, examination booklets, pension regulations and employee benefit plans, employee time cards, payroll sheets, memoranda, staff circulars, employment contracts, broadsides advertising employment opportunities, certificates of discharge related to service on C.P.R. steamships, correspondence, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, an employee's diary, a blank section book, and photographs of C.P.R. employees.