Two trips were made by LC Gagnon in 1961 to see and photograph steam engines at Angus Shops knowing that most of them would soon be scrapped. Three similar trips were made to Turcot Yard that summer to see and document CNR engines. Entering 'Turcot' in the search field above will bring up those posts if you are interested.
I was along for the April trip to Angus and probably the August expedition as well. A 1960 roadmap at the end of this post shows the location of many of Montreal's railway features and our probable bus-routes of pilgrimage from Lachine to Angus.
Within just a few years, my father's snapshot Ektachrome slides exhibited this pink cast. Only certain batches of film were plagued by this problem in the early 1960s. Sloppy, bulk 'drug store' developing techniques also resulted in deposits (eg. green blobs) on many of the slides. Colour photography was still expensive in this era and my parents were saving for their first car.
Fortunately, modern image-processing software can correct some of these defects now. LC Gagnon would be happy to know that his efforts were preserved on the internet and that people were downloading and saving his images for their historical - if not their aesthetic - qualities.
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August 1961 Visit to Angus Shops
Data comes from: Canadian Pacific Steam Locomotives; Omer Lavallée; 1985; Railfare.
Angus was a sprawling facility and I won't make any attempt at this late date to guess where these summer morning photos were taken.
2231 - Built 1914, Angus, Class G1V. To Canadian Railway Museum, March 1963.
2858 - Built 1938, MLW, Class H1D. To Canadian National Museum Corp, November 1966.
People like looking at old cars.
2459 - Built 1945, CLC, Class G3H. Scrapped September 1961.
1264 - Built 1946, CLC, Class G5C. Scrapped Feb 1962.
2819 - Built 1930, MLW, Class H1B. Scrapped September 1961.
2399 - Built 1942, CLC, Class G3G. Scrapped September 1961.
8921 - Built 1957, MLW, Class DRS-24e. Retired 1995.
Sadly, this image will always be blurred.
The photograph was taken from Sherbrooke Street, East.
The train is coming up the hill from Hochelaga.
A warm cloud of diesel exhaust can be seen.
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April 1961 Visit to Angus
Let's get this image out of the way. This is noted to be Rachel Street.
The water tank is behind the urchin's head. I hadn't turned four yet.
This was a bus ride excursion, but there wasn't a lot of 'train essence' in it.
It was basically looking at something boring through a fence.
The hot summer creosote-scented visits to Turcot were much more impressive.
3632 - Built 1911, CLC, Class N2A. Scrapped April 1961.
After posting, Eric noted that this engine was a favourite of LC Gagnon because it was the Glen Yard switcher.
LC Gagnon's childhood home was in Westmount and Glen Yard was a favourite spot to visit.
2928 - Built 1938, CLC, Class F1A. To Canadian Railway Museum, March 1963.
6271 - Built 1913, Angus, Class U3E. To Canadian Railway Museum, March 1963.
3388 - Built 1902, Alco, Class M3B. To Canadian Railway Museum, March 1963.
424 - Built 1915, Angus, Class D4G. Scrapped June 1966.
The legible part of the yellow signs read Good Morning and Bonjour.
Probably to provide heat to the gatehouse (off camera to the left), you see a classic coal bunker.
Could it be that there's a steam engine connected to that distant cloud of smoke?
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Roadmap from 1960
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| from: Lovell's Arrow Map and Street Index. 1960. (used in service) |
At this point, we lived on 45th Avenue Lachine south of the CNR tracks (when they ran along Victoria). We didn't yet own our 1962 VW Beetle. The bus routes (but not bus stops) are shown by black dots. We probably took a bus along Upper Lachine Road and transferred to another route at the terminus at Atwater.
Looking for the old railway attractions along the way, from Lachine to Angus, perhaps you can identify ...
- CPR Montreal West station, North & South Junctions, the land of Sortin Yard to the west. The CPR Lachine Bridge ... to the south shore and the Maritimes.
- The broad expanse of land occupied by CNR Turcot Yard ... and the CPR Glen Yard with its loop. As best I have been able to determine, the name Pullman St (between them) does not have a railway origin.
- Continuing east and staying north of the Lachine Canal, the location of CNR Bonaventure station which still dispatched commuter trains west through built-up Lachine to Dorval in the 1950s. And Bonaventure's namesake street.
- The location of the CPR's 'Windsor Street station' and its namesake street. It was served by the Glen Yard.
- CPR's Place Viger station/hotel and its namesake civic square/place.
- The location of CPR's Delorimier [Avenue] Shops/'New Shops'. They occupied the same block as the Pied-du-Courant prison where Patriote François-Marie-Thomas Chevalier de Lorimier was hanged in 1839.
- CPR's old Hochelaga yard/terminal and Angus Shops to its north.