Full-size, model and toy trains were often associated with the winter school holidays. For the benefit of extended family members, some other Montreal-based historical photos of interest are included in this selection.
1960: This toy train was built by LC Gagnon, but its first iteration had a locomotive of similar wooden construction, with something like a black-painted Johnson Klear floor wax can serving as its boiler. Here, the CPR, Great Northern and Union Pacific are represented. This rare colour print was specially-made from a slide - probably to document all the effort he put into creating this colourful set.
For some time I was puzzled by my father's persisting interest in building sophisticated toys from a large Meccano set he/we owned. However, many adults today value their Lego sets and specialized Lego kits. I've concluded that many of us 'finish off' our childhoods as young adults when we finally have the resources to buy adequate quantities of our favourite childhood hobby supplies.
Back then, my own skills with Meccano were extremely limited. The tiny nuts and bolts (mimicking rivets) for this 'Canadian railway boom era' British-designed toy were too hard on little fingers unless one had developed the necessary callouses to 'start them' ... before giving them a final tightening with a small screwdriver or wrench. Considering current corporate liability defensiveness, it is hard to imagine how impossible it would be to sell a children's toy with so many small metal parts today.
You can see the Viking TV with rabbit ears. Its manual tuner had a satisfying 'clunk' as you skipped around the dial: 2 (CBFT), 3 (WCAX, Burlington), 4 (CBM), 5 (WPTZ, Plattsburgh), 10 (CFTM), 12 (CFCF). Filtering out either very snowy or French channels ... only 3, 4 and 12 were viewed regularly in our 3-channel television universe.
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1962: The Eaton's Train was set up just for the Christmas season. Its annual operation was anticipated with excitement at our home. It was incredibly quiet and smooth in its typical slow-speed operation. It is explored in more detail elsewhere in this blog.
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Dec 1962: Outside of our 45th Avenue, Lachine, apartment.
Our kitchen window is behind the front bumper of our new VW.
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1963: A Christmas gift of 1960 appears here. It's a British-designed Hornby wind-up train set. This set was added to over the years. From the earliest days of my parents' marriage there was an HO layout present in the house so there was no thought of buying an electric toy 'O' gauge set for the kids.
My father's 'cottage organ' can be seen with its seven stops. An Argus slide projector and a Bell & Howell reel-to-reel tape recorder are ready to document family events.
They sit atop my father's 1950s-era Viking AM/FM/shortwave, 33/45/78 rpm record-playing, mono sound system. The automatic record changer was used cautiously with multiple 78 rpm records ... in case their complete massive weight crashed down prematurely, breaking the previous selection. Back then, 5 hit songs (chosen at random) weighed 1.018 kg.
Socio-technical verdict of history: The Vikings may have been a fierce, fearless, seafaring gang, but my guess is that history will remember them for the very fine vacuum tubes they made for TVs and radios sold through Eaton's.
As the family enlarges with my sister, I should include my deliberately-seldom-photographed-with-trains mother in here somehow. (She took the photo above.) There are no Christmas photos showing her with any kind of train, but she documented her own western train trip in exquisite detail.
Her father had been with this outfit:
... And a paternal cousin ... who was the previous owner of that small rocking chair ... had a father-in-law ... who was a locomotive engineer on the Intercolonial Railway ... who was killed in a collision at Ste Rosalie Junction, Quebec in 1910.
(You have certainly come to the right post to find obscure railway curiosities!)
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Feb 1964: At our second home on 43rd Avenue, Lachine, here is a view of snow clearing operations. Shortly after the snowfall stopped, the sidewalks were plowed by small Bombardier tracked plows and now the accumulated roadside snowbank is being centred for the attention of the snowblower.
This is a good front-window view of a Sicard snowblower. It seems that the plow truck above also has the distinctive Sicard lines.
This fine shot shows the operation on our side of the street.
Compared to modern Montreal snow removal vehicles, the receiving dump truck looks quite dainty.
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Dec 1964: It seems we only just arrived here from the previous apartment, but it's time to move again. This time we are moving from our rented rowhouse to my parents' first owned house. The family has another new member, and so we move from 43rd Avenue to 47th Avenue. Here, the camera faces south in front of our point of departure. Even the Christmas tree has been loaded with the intention of re-erecting it at 47th.
The caption in the photo book notes an endless series of VW shuttle trips with books and papers. In fact, virtually every move by every family member since ... has involved heavy, special shuttle moves with 'books and papers'. That's just how we roll.
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Jan 1965: Another toy train set-up. This is in the basement of the house on 47th.
While there are no proper rails with this toy,
the track segments provide a guideway for vehicles which is quite similar to the early 'plateways' used in Britain.
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Dec 1968: I am let loose with the black and white print camera to make one of many expeditions to the CP commuter station at Grovehill - at the top of 40th, Avenue, Lachine. Just eight years later, I would have my chance to work on this class of engine at Schreiber. By then, my 'fantrip photography technique' would have been altered by three summers of farm work, to include a healthy respect for the dangers of heavy equipment. Consequently, in early 1977 I'd stand farther back from the track during running inspections of passing freight trains!
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Dec 1968: At 47th Avenue, Lachine.
We had all made a trans-Canada trip on the Super Continental during the previous summer.
A move to Ontario would take place seven months after this photo.
It was a logic-defying shock to discover that Kingston's CBC Hockey Night in Canada only showed Toronto Maple Leaf games!
By then, it was too late to move back.
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Dec 1968: On a dark winter afternoon, whether in watercolours or oils, we all paint together.
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