In September 1989 we made our usual western trip.
Some railway features along the way are the focus of this post.
While our schedules seldom permitted lingering at intermediate towns,
I'm glad I invested in locally-produced town histories when I could find them.
... Over decades, as fewer citizens have been employed by railways at these smaller railway centres,
the cultural awareness of local railway operations has eroded quite quickly in many cases.
Often, the local public library maintains a valuable cache of railway heritage information.
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CAPREOL - JUST NORTH OF SUDBURY
(Originally a Canadian Northern division point)
This location is known in 2018 as the Northern Ontario Railroad Museum & Heritage Centre. In 1989, here at Capreol, we spoke to one of the women volunteers who was very knowledgeable about local history and the railway.
How long ago was this? Another person was interviewing a potential employee and he asked her if she had ever 'burned a CD'.
We dropped by at 20hr on the evening we arrived at Sudbury to see the museum site.
... Via Google maps in 2018, the Centre seems to be doing really well today.
On that same evening we also visited Capreol yard.
Above, looking west ... below, looking east.
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SUDBURY
On the morning of our easiest day of travel,
between Sudbury and Schreiber,
we had a quick look at Sudbury yard.
This photo above is over-exposed because I wanted to get some detail of the station.
This hand-coloured postcard was mailed to Ormstown, Quebec in 1912.
* * *
MAP OF NORTHERN ONTARIO FROM 1912
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| Atlas of Canada; WJ Roche, Minister of the Interior; 1912; Govt of Canada. |
* * *
IGNACE
... The first CPR division point west of Thunder Bay.
A postcard mailed in 1984 looks toward the west end of Ignace.
The station is beyond the right edge of the photo.
You can see a large, turquoise CPR bunkhouse radiating south from the power track.
These photos were taken on our return trip - between Portage la Prairie and Thunder Bay.
I believe we are at the west end of the yard.
Taken at 16hr, my photo caption jokes that the track crews were playing 'tie plate soccer'.
... At least, they were skirmishing over something that heavy on the ground.
I never found the modern iteration of the Ignace station particularly attractive.
I believe this is the south side.
The fish-eye treatment of my lens makes it difficult to match the two halves well.
Passage from Ignace, A Saga of the Shield :
The view above is on Front Street with the tracks beyond the houses and to the north.
The former CPR houses can be seen above on Front Street.
Between them and the light grey 'island' where the station was located,
is the 'new' south main track which displaced them circa 1908.
'An Ignace crew prepares this woodburner for duty as a doubleheader.'
I believe this is the south side.
The fish-eye treatment of my lens makes it difficult to match the two halves well.
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| Cover image detail from: Ignace, A Saga of the Shield; Elinor Barr & Betty Dyck; 1979; The Prairie Publishing Company. |
The Winnipeg to Fort William section of the CPR line was doubled between 1905 and 1909 (source:Wiki) to accommodate grain traffic. The strange-looking mounting of the train order signal at the 'back' (south side) of the station was a bit of a puzzle. I would love to see a 'ball signal' hanging beyond that dog, but it is probably just a yard light.
Passage from Ignace, A Saga of the Shield :
'Crews completed doubletracking in 1908. Allied work at Ignace included enlarging the railway yards substantially. The CPR houses, now blocking the proposed crossover south of the station were shifted back on to basements poured behind each building.'
The station no longer exists, but the company housing with its hip rooves still appears in a 2012 version of Google maps ...
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| from: Google 2018 - Image from 2012. |
The view above is on Front Street with the tracks beyond the houses and to the north.
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| from Bing maps circa 2018 |
The former CPR houses can be seen above on Front Street.
Between them and the light grey 'island' where the station was located,
is the 'new' south main track which displaced them circa 1908.
This interesting summary of the first CPR facilities at Ignace comes from Ignace, A Saga of the Shield:
'The CPR finished constructing its facilities in 1887. The 12-stall roundhouse and hand-operated turntable dominated the less pretentious buildings surrounding them. Nearby a coal shed 280 feet long paralleled a side track, and the platform-fronted station hugged the main line. To the west stood a water tank, with its eye-catching windmill; to the east, a fenced field where prairie cattle broke their journey.'
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| from: Ignace, A Saga of the Shield; Elinor Barr & Betty Dyck; 1979; The Prairie Publishing Company. |
Before its purchase by the CPR in 1910, this building was a hotel built during the Sturgeon Lake gold rush.
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| Ignace, A Saga of the Shield; Elinor Barr & Betty Dyck; 1979; The Prairie Publishing Company. |
Caption from: Ignace, A Saga of the Shield :
The engine seems to be 'cold' so its crew probably has not been ordered for duty. This may show the locomotive in the process of having its coupling system and pilot changed from a link and pin technology, to Janney-style couplers.
A number of old design features and locomotive technologies can be seen in the photo above.