My father took these slides of Turcot yard in Montreal in February 1961. Around this time, 35 mm slide processing and slide projectors had only been widely available as consumer items for about a decade - so they were 'the latest thing'.
In our family, black and white prints still soldiered on in parallel with slides for a decade or more. And later, given the commitment to the thousands already taken, it took some time for my father to convert from slides to colour prints.
While these images look pretty rough compared to the latest HD digital photos, they have already outlived reel-to-reel and cassette audio recording, and the Beta and VHS video formats.
Analog media (including 78 rpm records) can still be 'downloaded' via relatively simple mechanical systems. One hopes that people are backing up their smartphone photos and that their 'cloud' backups will not be subject to loss through corporate caprice.
The CNR's new Montreal hump yard and engine terminal was gradually taking over operations from Turcot and the end of steam in 1960 had been the catalyst for a lot of this change.
Located just to the west of the roundhouse, it seems likely that this area
would have been used for firebox cleaning into ashpits.
That crane was likely used for ash handling and loading into railcars.
A bit of chain link fence wasn't noticed by my father,
looking through eyeglasses and a tiny viewfinder.
The latter was NOT looking at the same view as the actual lens, shutter and film.
would have been used for firebox cleaning into ashpits.
That crane was likely used for ash handling and loading into railcars.
A bit of chain link fence wasn't noticed by my father,
looking through eyeglasses and a tiny viewfinder.
The latter was NOT looking at the same view as the actual lens, shutter and film.
Mass-market point and shoot Brownies were not single-lens reflex cameras.
My father was a practitioner of multi-photograph panorama photo creation. Using masking tape, the image thus assembled would be mounted in a book using photo corners. This technique did not work for slides.
However, scanning equipment and image processing software have progressed to the point that I was able to take multiple square-format slides and assemble them into a larger image - missing guy wires and other local obstructions in the originals. My father repositioned the camera slightly between photos to ensure that a suitable overlap would be possible ... 60 years later.
While you won't print these into a poster-size images and frame them, the images at least document what was next to what near the roundhouse at the end of steam.
As always, Google limits the resolution of my largest image, so the roundhouse was presented alone (above) to show better detail.
Part of the coaling facility is shown above.
Steam locomotives once ran up that grade to spot hopper cars full of coal.
The coal would be released into the multiple hoppers within the structure.
I would guess there was some quality-based system which determined
into which compartments given shipments of coal were placed.
From there, gravity would drop the coal into engine tenders on demand.
Those loading chutes were on the far side of the facility.
* * *
Westmount and Glen Yard in February 1961
Westmount and Glen Yard in February 1961
Above, the ladder stands ready to support updating of the public schedule -
the latter being mandated by the Railway Act.
Two miles from Windsor Station, the Westmount Tower controlled the interlocking.
Drafts of passenger cars and power were always on the move between Glen Yard and Windsor.
Notice all the dwarf signals around the switcher.
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| Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, Fire Insurance Map collection. |
which shows the relative locations of the two roundhouses.
'The Glen' was up the escarpment from Turcot.
The map is from 1912.
Finally, a look at the passenger cars connected to the steam plant at 'The Glen'.