Most of the above I wrote in another thread that was kind of weird and had little interest so I've reposted it here. String Lining has been an interesting thread and don't want to see it sink into oblivion.
Burlington is in Southern Ontario about 5 miles from the city of Hamilton. The coloured pictures are from Galt, a bit further to the North and West, but not too far away. They capture the transition time real well.
I'm sure this is a story that many of us are familiar with in our own ways yet the theme is basically the same.
I believe we had a good thing in place that was becoming looked upon as antiquated and unnecessary. Maybe we took it all for granted and abandoned what had been and served very well and decently for a very long time. From that day when we lost it all we lost too much.
We are the last that were there, knew it as it was. It makes you wonder if future generations can recapture it.
We lived one block from this station, went there a lot after school from grade 1 right up until I was 18...when I left for higher education to hopefully become a geologist, which by some miracle turned out successfully.
Once thing strikes me though...when people describe an idyllic place to live, or if they become wealthy, they usually cite or choose a simple place, with a small population, with apple orchards, near a lake and has an easy pace to it...rural, friendly, green and blue. No muss, no fuss, plenty to do, very fufulling, yet a calm exstacy combined with an active life.
The other thing is that as a young kid, say around 7,8 and up I knew we had exactly that and that the way things were was just to good to last.
One of my first great moments of sadness came when I was told the TH&B Berkshires had gone to scrap. Could this be true? 3 years later or so, their ex NYC Hudson's.
The passenger train you see in the picture was the first passenger train I knew and saw almost daily that got the axe. It was a true branch line train, very rural, no big city centers, all the way to water/ferry connections in Allendale way up the line.
The CNR streamlined Northerns, CPR 4-4-4's, Royal Hudson's, monster freight steam, freight peddler 2-8-0's, 4-6-0's all soldiered on right up until late '59. Yes there were Diesels but business was brisk right across the land so power was needed. They maintained steam to a high level right to the end. As NDG pointed out once, some on the scrap line still had fresh paint. CNR and CPR chose an end date in the spring of 1960 and mutually agreed to put them away for good. No more water, no more coal.
The last steam I saw through town was a CPR Jubilee 4-4-4 ( not the original ones) running with RDC's! over the heavy Christmas period of 1959/60.
So I lived an idyllic life, in an idyllic place, at the right time and I knew it. Also knew it was going to end. We spend the rest of our lives trying to attain those feelings again but we can only grasp it once in a while, here and there. To what end? We had it in the first place!
This is exactly as how I recall the steam/Diesel era in Southern Ontario. I lived in Burlington in the fifties, when it was a town of 5,000 folks and apple orchards, before it became a 200,000 sprawling burb within the GTA. ( greater Toronto area) ...Apple orchards, once famous, are now malls. None, and I mean none, remain. Fast food places up the ying yang.
Lots of steam right up until the end in late 59. Busy railroad town with 2 junctions and both CNR, CPR along with TH&B/NYC.
As a kid and young teen I got to know the fella that ran the station, issuing tickets, on the wire tapping out morse and speaking railroad talk up and down the line. Copying orders...that fella seemed to work seven days a week, all day and all night because it was always the same guy.
2 Water tanks, coaling tower , icing platforms for reefers at the fruit sheds, tower at Brant St., which was the main drag, overseeing many many multiples of tracks crossing it, was a well known fixture for the town. The Grimbsy subdivision and the Halton subdivision both ending at the station right there, so sometimes trains on all three converging. Big mainline...Hamilton, London, Windsor, to the West ...Toronto, Montreal to the East. The subivisions to all points North via Allendale and onward to the West, the other to Niagara Falls-Ft. Erie-Buffalo and all the US roads found there.
Tip Top Tailors, huge Basket Factory, Niagara Chemical Plant and large central fresh produce/fruit terminal for distribution, all right there as well. Long storage sidings for many work trains and all their associated equipment paralleled the mainlines through town for many years.
The station is gone, typical standard GT/CN turn of the century with freight depot. It was saved by enthusiasts and is now a tourist information center, moved down to the shores at a park along Lake Ontario. Teenagers staffing the place in the summer havent got a clue.
No trains stop at at the remnants of the platforms, instead replaced by a Go Train/VIA commuter bus shelter thingie with parking for a zillion cars now located about half a mile East.
These 2 photos are in Galt. They were originally posted by NDG but I am using them to illustrate the end of steam
The Kat went under the chesterfield.Thank You.
For our American friends "a chesterfield" is the couch or sofa. Not a pack of smokes!
Thank You.
1830's Wow...Have we progressed? Technically for sure, but looking at those folks I'm not so sure....and there's the Bank Of Montreal again!
NDG- Not sure about photoshopped...comes from the Old Time Trains site, picture from the sixties...looks like the sign was the reason for the picture. I remember that structure very well with the enormous sign...it faced traffic on the Gardner Expressway near the CNE grounds if not right on them. Lots of electronic signs there now.
Maybe someone from Toronto can update.
Miningman Well while we are on the subject of 'Faux" check this out. It looks like CN, in collaboration with the Bank Of Montreal, pulled a switcheroo on Canadain Pacific, substituting some lettering!
Well while we are on the subject of 'Faux" check this out.
It looks like CN, in collaboration with the Bank Of Montreal, pulled a switcheroo on Canadain Pacific, substituting some lettering!
Photoshop??
DeggestyBack in the fifties, I saw a Southern car which hadbeen repainted to resemble, at distance, a lightweight car. Close up, it was an ugly thing.
Yeah, but the Silverliners were cool. I hate linking to Facebook, but here is a picture showing a detail of the added siding, which to contemporary eyes is a bit bus-like but at the time would have been quite modern enough.
Electroliners and some other cars got the shadow-lining, which was cool in a different way. Even relatively close up it looked 'the way it should', at least in my opinion.
Great stuff NDG. Many folks just don't know this process.
On that Dofasco clip, in Hamilton, Ont. another interesting fact is that one of Hamilton's main and important streets, Ottawa St., runs right through a portion of the Dofasco complex. There are passageways and conveyors overhead, clouds of steam continually, hot ingots, rolls and rolls of steel, forklifts, workers everywhere and a busy switching yard ( TH&B) also crossing Ottawa St. Driving through there was unbelievable. They had a covered walkway crossing over the street and it was labelled the "Kyber Pass". City buses even used that route. What a show.
That could never happen today but the whole thing was grandfathered in and so it remains.
By the way, this is amazing!
Back in the fifties, I saw a Southern car which hadbeen repainted to resemble, at distance, a lightweight car. Close up, it was an ugly thing.
Johnny
The Silverliners were CNS&M heavyweights with an interior rebuild and an exterior repainting of red from the bottom windowline up and silver with shadowlining below the windows.
CSSHEGEWISCH Miningman There are 4 Dome Observations from the original Canadian, 3 together and the other seperated by 2 Heaveyweghts in maroon. There is at least one heavyweight painted in silver to "match" the consist of the Canadian and other trains. I recall seeing these in Toronto Union Station coachyards and thinking what a horrible idea that was. They looked awful. You obviously would not have liked North Shore Line's Silverliners or B&O's "streamstlyed" heavyweights of various configurations.
Miningman There are 4 Dome Observations from the original Canadian, 3 together and the other seperated by 2 Heaveyweghts in maroon. There is at least one heavyweight painted in silver to "match" the consist of the Canadian and other trains. I recall seeing these in Toronto Union Station coachyards and thinking what a horrible idea that was. They looked awful.
There are 4 Dome Observations from the original Canadian, 3 together and the other seperated by 2 Heaveyweghts in maroon.
There is at least one heavyweight painted in silver to "match" the consist of the Canadian and other trains. I recall seeing these in Toronto Union Station coachyards and thinking what a horrible idea that was.
They looked awful.
You obviously would not have liked North Shore Line's Silverliners or B&O's "streamstlyed" heavyweights of various configurations.
Thought the North Shore had 'Electroliners'?
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
From NDG's post on Page 11 from Tuesday, February 21, 2017 (5:51 PM here in EST zone) - emphasis added:
Scenario. Time 2345. 15 Below, Wire humming, Oil Stove and the Clock best company a guy could have. Mice in ceiling, above.Deer, Elk, looking in the window, and from across the track, their eyes similar to signal aspects in lamp light, Lynx, Bob Cats and Coyotes looking for Rail Kill. Rail contracting like ice on a lake. No Wind, Stars like jewels above. Northern Lights deciding to the North, being shy.
No Kat ??
Just having some fun here - I really enjoy your stories and recollections !
All the best,
- PDN.
Above picture Glenn Yard again but different view....
Interesting collection of cars on the far right.
Are all these cars needing repair or servicing? Looks like most of the equipment has been painted in the multi mark. Lots of full baggage cars.
Nice to see the bi-level gallery coaches for suburban service.
Above photo Glenn Yards in Montreal.
How many RDC's?
Just a contrast to all the North and Western railroading we have been talking about.
[quote user="NDG"]OT.[\quote]
Not at all OT is the story 5 or 6 items down. What is this about emergency brakes leaking off a loaded tankcar which ran away uncontrolled through town?
Can't blame THIS one on convenient American rule violations.
Unless that's "cando for progress" from the forum, doing a little hobo booming -- let's hope not.
Above Photo is Mt. Asgard, Nunavut, Canada
Thangorodrim- The one who rules over them all!
MiningmanCheck out Mt. Asgard, Mt. Thor and Mt. Odin.
Isn't that Mt. Thangorodrim in the middle?
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