GTR 1890 Lachine Wharf - An Engineer Killed by an Open Switch

At a recent postcard show I found this card which shows a station building I was not familiar with - Lachine Wharf. There was a CNR spur which almost reached the wharf when I was a kid. 

... Back then, around 1961, the CNR was winding up use of its main line which follows the route of today's Victoria Street in Lachine. The line was being relocated to the north - to today's location between Autoroute 20 and the Canadian Pacific main line.

I don't know a lot about postcards ('but I know what I like') and I wondered if other copies of this card could be found on the internet. Sure enough, BANQ - Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec - has one and another interesting image (below) popped up at the same time.

The next step was to find contemporary newspaper accounts of the event ... 

Consequently, my original idea for this week's post was discarded as I chased after the subject of this post.

This story has many features which were so typical of the 'human experience of railroading' during this era. It is cliché, but the engineer was killed by an open switch ... he stayed in the cab with his hand on the throttle ... many passengers were saved by his action. 

Some later disagreed with the last point (details to follow) ...

from: Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec.

Typical of some of Canada's earliest railways, the Montreal and Lachine Railroad - opening in 1847 - served as a 'portage railway' to connect two navigable bodies of water. The Lachine Rapids effectively blocked navigation up the St Lawrence toward the Great Lakes. The Montreal and Lachine Railroad replaced animal-drawn conveyances for people and goods going around this barrier.

Between 1825 and 1850, various configurations of the Lachine Canal were also developed - enabling passengers and goods to bypass the rapids ... during the shipping season.

The Lachine Wharf railway terminal shown here was built in 1860. 

An advantage of the railway 'portage' line over the canal was speed - travelling 12 kilometres by rail ... was accomplished faster than 14.5 kilometres on board a canal boat making its way through locks.

While it was a nice idea ... this line failed to divert enough traffic from the Lachine Canal to be profitable. Eventually, under the Grand Trunk, Lachine Wharf station received excursion traffic from Montreal, as Montrealers and tourists took tour boat trips along Lake St Louis to St. Anne's and back.

The railway system of Canada developed because it was an all-weather transportation mode well-suited to Canada's needs. A junction formed at the approach to the wharf and this new track eventually became part of the main line of the Grand Trunk Railway from Montreal (Canada's metropolis) toward Toronto and points west, including Chicago.

In the illustration below, A-B is the main line. B (timetable station Willows) is a telegraph-equipped shanty to support the junction switch to the wharf spur. You can see the wharf station at C. You'll also notice a wye to turn equipment for its return run to Montreal. 

As the contemporary artist is surely not depicting a potential cornfield meet between those two mainline trains, I will disagree with some sources and conclude there was double track here in 1890.

Here is the local newspaper coverage of the accident which occurred on 4 December 1890.

I suspect the paper document was microfilmed and subsequently turned into a digital form.

It will take a little patience to get every word, and I'll point out a few interesting points after you look at it.

from: Montreal Daily Witness; 4 Dec 1890; Google Newspapers.

The capitalized headings below match those in the article above. 

My comments/ideas below pertain to the text in the article ... under those headings.

INTO THIS THE ENGINE PITCHED

• The 'pitch in' at Bonaventure was a derailment in the station yard.
• 'immigrants going west' may well have been travelling on through Chicago - to the American or Canadian west.
• The engineer had over 30 years of service.

THE TENDER FELL UPON HIM

• I suspect the baggageman was probably an experienced brakeman with seniority to work in passenger service.
• 'snatched at the bell rope' Before air signal lines, intercoms and radios, a rope ran the length of a train, on the outside, to a gong in the cab - so the train crew could communicate with the engine crew.

DAMAGED IN THE FRONT END

• 'about 10 or 12 miles [per hour]' presumably along the wharf spur.
• 'till we saw the station' It seems passing the wharf station tipped off the engineer that they were on the spur.
• 'the entire train would have been telescoped' In collision, wooden coaches often telescoped into each other - crushing the passengers inside.

WOULD HAVE BEEN LOST

• 'I got water and put out the stove.' After telescoping, and other upsets, varnished wooden coaches were often set on fire by upset coal or coke stoves, often with the passengers trapped in the wreckage. Later, much safer steam heat trainlines were employed for train heat.

INFORMING THE OPERATOR THERE (Willows)

• 'Well, that's not done on double track.'  For a westbound to be so easily diverted to a south-side spur ... left-hand running (where engineers can easily see opposing trains) must have been the standard at that point in history on the GTR.

As you'll recall from the article above, it was a switchman/operator by the name of Dubois who lined the switch for the spur. According to one reference, a new Lachine station - had been built on the main line in 1888 - the accident occurred in 1890. Probably, an important gateway-to-Montreal station like Lachine had a live-in agent who was supplemented with part-time operators at certain hours. 

The new Lachine station is on the main line and beyond the left edge of the artist's drawing ... being located a little farther to the west.

One question, is whether Dubois was assigned to the Lachine, Willows (the switchtender shanty), or the Lachine Wharf station. 

It seems possible that a part-time or training operator might have been sent (walked) from Lachine to Willows, where:

• He would throw the switch. 
• The Wharf train would then clear the main and stop. 
• He would normal the switch, and swing aboard the tailend of the Lachine Wharf train. 
• He would then go on duty at Lachine Wharf as an operator to deal with any paperwork/ supervision of the station/ train orders/ clearances as needed. 

... This is just my speculation!

An important operational point, on which the article is silent, is keeping the switch cleaned out during a snowstorm. If the switch at Willows, leading to the Lachine Wharf, was to be ready for the morning train, Dubois would have to ensure it was cleaned. I think this train may have been a westbound wayfreight.

If the switch was not cleaned out and if the Lachine Wharf train was not cleared from the main promptly ... the main line would be blocked ... and someone from the train would have to go back and flag in a snowstorm.

Sometimes Transportation Safety Board investigations describe people reacting to what they expect will happen based on past experience, rather than what is actually happening around them ...

If you were continually going out and cleaning the switch to ensure that the Lachine Wharf train would immediately clear the main line ... you might become captive to that idea when you finally saw a headlight.

*  *  *

In an editorial on the following day, 5 December 1890, it is noted that Canada has no railway commission and that the investigation would depend on a coroner's jury.

from: Montreal Daily Witness, 5 Dec 1890; Google Newspapers.

A municipal map section from 1932-1954 appears below ...

Above, you can see the Lachine Wharf spur leaving the Montreal-Toronto main line at Willows. This old roadbed is under today's Victoria Street in Lachine. The wharf and trackwork have been altered and the station no longer exists. The remnants of a wye can be seen along the spur. Generally, the dashed lines indicate railways. However, the dashed lines linked to 34th Avenue are streetcar tracks.

The GTR/CNR Lachine station is the elongated 'T' in the top-left corner of the map. It was opened in 1888, according to my interpretation of Montreal Island Railway Stations; Michael Leduc; 1994; self-published. This station was closed in June 1961.

1892 from: Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec.

Above: Two years after the accident. The camera is looking downstream toward Montreal. The Lachine Wharf station is seen at the left, along with part of its telegraph line. The steamboats are probably carrying people on excursions.

*  *  *

1913 from: Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec.

Above, the Lachine Wharf station as seen from the Montreal side in 1913. The tops of the station chimneys are just visible over the coaches. Notice the red flag daytime markers on the tailend. As well as operating west to St Anne's, some of the steamboats also offered rides downriver to Montreal - shooting the Lachine Rapids. They would return upstream via the Lachine Canal.

***********************************************************************************

The first wharf at Lachine.

A complication which I've tried to save you from ... until now!

The Montreal and Lachine Railroad began service to Lachine (old wharf) on 19 November 1847. The old wharf was located at the foot of 21st Avenue - as seen on the 1932-1954 map below and the location is labeled as the 'Iroquois Yacht Club'. (Remember that the new and relocated Lachine Wharf station, of postcard fame, was completed in 1860.) This old location only had an effective lifespan of 13 years.

The waters adjacent to Lachine (old wharf) were too shallow for the more modern steam vessels operating across the St Lawrence River to Caughnawaga (Kahnawake). This resulted in the building of the second Lachine Wharf - around which our accident story is centred.

from: The Delaware & Hudson 85 Years of International Service; author not indicated; CRHA News Report, Feb 1961; Canadian Railroad Historical Association.

The idea of operating a railway 'car ferry' from Lachine to Caughnawaga (Kahnawake) was given up around 1864. With the opening of the Victoria Bridge in 1859 - an all weather route to the south shore - it wasn't profitable to use the cumbersome car ferry route, which operated only during the navigation season.

With the building of the 1888 Lachine station, Lachine (old wharf) was renamed Convent.

1925 from: Archives historiques de la Ville de Montréal

Above, in 1925, you can see the curving upstream inlet of the Lachine Canal. In all of these images, the original Lachine Canal is a narrow waterway which hugs the shore. To its immediate left is the pier - crowded with dark buildings - which was the first Lachine wharf - with that car ferry connection to the south shore at Caughnawaga (Kahnawake). 

You can also see the large factories fronting on the Canadian National Railways (formerly GTR) line through Lachine. 

Looking toward the right horizon, you can see a cloud of smoke rising from what I think was the roundhouse of the CPR Sortin Yard.

***********************************************************************************

detail from: Lachine map original 1932, updated to 1954; acquired by LC Gagnon.

Comparing the 1932-1954 map to the aerial view from Google Maps of 2023 ...

The newspaper article refers to the spur down to the Lachine Wharf station (Quai Lachine). The Lachine (old wharf) is visible at the 'Iroquois Yacht Club'. On the map, you can still see the faint curve of the original spur from the main line to this long-gone railway terminal.

Below, the gentle curve of Victoria Street lies over the old Grand Trunk through Lachine. The spur to Lachine Wharf appears mainly in green, as the former railway real estate has been preserved as a trail.

from: Google maps

On the day of the accident, the headline of the Montreal Daily Witness framed the conclusion of their 'investigation'.

A Switchman's Error. An engineer dies with his hand on the throttle.

Those of you who read TSB accident reports, and who are familiar with the Uniform Code of Operating Rules of 1962, may have a more cautious approach to reaching a conclusion on this subject.

For example, there are several rules in the UCOR which are designed to ensure safety at main line switches and stations. They also existed back then.

Once I started looking at this event, I became really interested in learning more about its aftermath. Certainly, the Grand Trunk would conduct its own investigation, and it would probably deal privately with its own employees as it saw fit.

The lack of a Canadian railway commission - which is lamented in the editorial above - really did have a negative impact on the quality of the public investigation into this incident. 

... I expected that the poor operator/switchtender Dubois wouldn't do well. However, I was really surprised by some of the conclusions and deliberations of the citizen-investigators on the 'mixed' coroner's jury!

I'll work to present what I found out in the next post.

The CNR Lachine station, May 1961 (the original part was built in 1888), looking west.
Notice all of the safety appliances on my tricycle.

CNR 1954, Lachine and Ville LaSalle in the 1950s - Two Maps

In the process of handling some other documents, I found two large maps from the west end of Montreal which my father had acquired. As they were printed in the 1950s and show elements of railway infrastructure, I decided to reproduce them here in case others are interested in these places during that era.


I have matched up some of my father's railway snapshots with enlargements of relevant map segments. There are a couple of references to local industry and some family historical references as well.


If you have a slower internet connection ... and if you do not have a major interest in Montreal's west island ... you may wish to skip this post.

Montreal in Evolution; Jean-Claude Marsan; 1981; McGill-Queen's University Press. Collection of LC Gagnon.

Here is Montreal Island as drawn by A Jobin in 1834. The Paroisse de Lachine (Parish) extends over the future cities of Lachine and LaSalle. The Sault St Louis was a previous New France name for the Lachine Rapids - you can barely see 'Rapides' labelled at the bottom of the map. The western entrance of the Lachine Canal, the canal route through the future Ville LaSalle, and the eastern end of the canal at Montreal are hi-lited.

*  *  *

My father's first map shows Ville LaSalle.

Below are some sights to be seen along the Lower Lachine Road - labelled as LaSalle Boulevard on the map. The first postcard was mailed in 1905, the second is undated.

Above: Located at 9681 LaSalle Boulevard today.

The CPR line leading to the south shore and thence to the 'Short Line' through Maine is seen above, and is enlarged below. Railway lines also ran along the canal and looped through this industrial area.

The Lachine Canal was built to bypass the Lachine rapids, finally opening in 1825. It was upgraded several times until it was finally replaced by the St Lawrence Seaway. Since the beginning of European settlement, the rapids had been a barrier to shipping inland from Montreal.

On trips to pick up my paternal aunt from her work at the Douglas Hospital in Verdun, we would travel along the rapids on the 'Lower Lachine Road'. On trips into Montreal by MTC bus in the 1960s, the final version of the Lachine Canal and the distinctive canal-side cranes were a regular sight.

Canada Post-War Possibilities; 1948; William S Boas & Co

The skeleton of the crane (above) is preserved at the location of 6668 St Patrick Street, Ville LaSalle. It is visible through Google. Canal-side railway lines and the crane are barely visible in this very dark photograph.

The LaSalle Coke Company was involved in the 'carbonization of bituminous coking coals'. It was established in 1928 - just outside the city limits of Montreal. 

'All gas distributed in the Montreal district for household and industrial use is manufactured at this plant and is its second most important product.'

Other products:

'Tar: used chiefly for roofing, wood-preserving, road-building water-proofing and production of electrodes and battery boxes. It is the source of an almost unlimited number of chemicals as well as dyes, plastics and insecticides.

'Ammonium Sulphate: the source of nitrogen in most fertilizers.

'Benzol: one of the raw materials from which synthetic rubber is made. It is also used in the production of aviation gasoline and for blending with ordinary gasoline to make anti-knock motor fuel.

'Toluol: the base from which TNT is made.'

As well as being used in metal refining processes, the smokeless quality of coke as a heating fuel was desirable in urban areas when money was no object. Caboose stoves often used coke - perhaps, in part, because stove pipes would be kept cleaner, reducing the danger of chimney fires.

Canada Post-War Possibilities; 1948; William S Boas & Co

The LaSalle Coke Company occupied the parcel of land shown above (and below in broader context).

*  *  *

The East End of the Lachine Canal

Canada Post-War Possibilities; 1948; William S Boas & Co

The Lachine Canal terminated at the Port of Montreal.
The view above is circa 1948, and shows the small canal boats used before the St Lawrence Seaway was built.

*  *  *

Lachine, Circa 1954

The map above is 28 inches by 18 inches in size and required about ten passes on the scanner to reproduce it in sufficient detail.

Below, images are shown with enlarged segments from this map .

*  *  *

Industries in Lachine's East End

The segment above shows the west end of the Lachine Canal and the industries established there with access both to the Lachine Canal and the Grand Trunk Railway main line - which subsequently became the CNR. The long-dashed lines are railway tracks, the short-dashed lines are streetcar tracks.

There are excellent fire insurance plans and other resources at the following location if you want to further explore the local geography. I have not linked the logo below.

Canada Post-War Possibilities; 1948; William S Boas & Co

One industry: Jenkins Valves, Lachine Foundry, circa 1948.

*  *  *

The Montreal and Lachine Railroad

Operating between the location of the Bonaventure (Street) Station in Montreal and the western end of the Lachine Rapids, the Montreal and Lachine Railroad (sic) was typical of some very early Canadian systems - opened in 1847, it was a 'portage railway' (connecting shipping routes which handled freight and passengers). At the Quai Lachine, above, you can see the Canadian National Railways wharf spur.

The first effort at building a canal is enclosed by the Promenade Pere Marquette. 

At the Iroquois Yacht Club you can just make out a parallel track-like curve to that wharf. This was the original water-side terminal of the Montreal and Lachine Railroad. 

Before the Victoria Bridge, entire passenger trains were car-ferried across the St Lawrence River for furtherance to the bright lights of New York City, etc. I studied this issue to bits at this link:

(my) Turcot Yard blog - The Origin of Turcot Yard

Detail for family members checking in:

* I think my post-retirement paternal grandfather liked a little night club named The El Paso Cafe on that Iroquois Yacht Club wharf 

- El Paso: c't'un vrai nom de 'chez nous'.

* The barely-visible church near the waterfront - west of 15th Avenue - was the 'little Scottish Church' erected by 'the fur traders' which my maternal grandparents, and subsequently our family, attended.

* My maternal grandfather worked at Stelco (on the previous map segment) and his family lived nearby.

* * *

Railway Photographs Circa 1960

Above, in the west end of Lachine (a more anglophone area of Lachine in the 1960s) there are a few local features of note:

Montreal's streetcar system runs up 34th Avenue and turns west near the CNR Lachine station building shown on the south side of the tracks. A streetcar wye is shown at Broadway and 44th Avenue.

Jean Renou Street is named after one of the real estate developers of western Lachine. At one point my family rented a townhouse from him. One of Mr Renou's relatives, living on Canada's west coast, indicated that he donated the land for Carignan Park - much of our unassigned childhood was spent there.

The following CNR snapshots were taken in the general area of 48th Avenue, Rene Huguet and Victoria ...

Eastbound CNR freight at 45th Avenue and Rene Huguet, Lachine, March 1958.

(I think the shutter speed of the 'point and shoot' camera was around 1/60th of a second.)

Eastbound local freight with 2203 at 48th Avenue at Rene Huguet, Lachine, March 1958. The crossbuck is bilingual and there is a pedestrian-level sign as well. Behind the photographer is Summerlea School - one of two English, Protestant elementary schools within a few blocks. The other (Meadowbrook) is beyond the second wooden boxcar and located on the other side of the CNR main line. 

... some of the local's consist.

Afternoon Pool train from Toronto near 44th Avenue, Lachine, September 1958.
The unruly kid doesn't know how to form a "photographers' line".

CNR westbound passenger near 48th Avenue at Rene Huguet, Lachine, May 1960.
After the roadbed was removed and developed for houses,
it was on almost exactly this spot where CPR Corporate Historian Omer Lavallee lived.

*  *  *

Photos of the CPR Line at 48th Avenue

In the map above, you can see that 48th Avenue also extended north to the highway (then, the Metropolitain Boulevard - today Autoroute 20). The CPR ran just north of the highway ... before the CNR built the CPR a new roadbed immediately to the north ... and relocated its old main line through Lachine to its new location between the CPR and the highway ... i.e. on the old CPR roadbed.

Around Lachine's western boundary, you can see three golf courses: Royal Montreal - with its famous CNR 'Dixie' station, the scene of many CNR equipment photos; and Meadowbrook and Summerlea - which supplied names to the elementary schools mentioned above.

Studying the map, you will see that 55th, 48th and 40th Avenues provided access to the highway. Sir George Simpson (Street) was one of the Scottish fur traders mentioned earlier.

CPR Dayliners eastbound at 48th Avenue, May 1960.

Here's what the access to the four-lane highway looked like. This was the main highway connecting Montreal and Toronto and there are no traffic lights at this point. This photo was taken just before Quebec's autoroute building boom began to modernize the road system with controlled access freeways ... the famous Echangeur Turcot becoming one of the highest expressions of this modernization in the 1960s. In the latter's shadow, in the 1990s, my father and I located and photographed the location of the old Turcot roundhouse we had known.

The Dayliners, above, were likely a mid-day commuter train heading for Windsor Station. You can see a genuine 'wig-wag' road crossing signal at the level crossing which takes motorists over the CPR to the Summerlea Golf Course.

CPR eastbound freight at 48th Avenue, Lachine, June 1959.

To the right, a car is entering the eastbound highway from the Summerlea level crossing ... or is in the process of executing a U-turn. To add extra danger and excitement to this photo, let's agree that the pickup truck is carrying cylinders of compressed gas.

CPR westbound passenger, 48th Avenue, Lachine, June 1959.

*  *  *

CPR/CNR Montreal Hump Yards

from: Canada Handbook 1961; Dominion Bureau of Statistics; Government of Canada.

The photo above looks to the north.

On the map below:
The track lead along the west side of the CNR yard originates at the wye south of the CPR overpass.

Family members looking in: The school just north of Provost on 10th Avenue is Central Park School (elementary, English, Protestant). My paternal grandfather was principal there for many years, and my mother attended school there.