From Clarence to Charles by Air!

Book customer and fellow model railroader Barry Elvidge contacted me about a black & white aerial photo print measuring 16x10 inches, showing the area roughly from Clarence Street to Charles Street, centred on Fort Frontenac and the Lasalle Causeway. Barry was kind enough to drop off the photo this morning, and my first instinct was to attempt to attach a year/date to the photo. Some criteria I used:

• the Ontario Street switchman's shanty is still in place. The shanty was removed between 1950 and 1963.
• the PUC propane tanks are already in place. The tanks were installed in February/March, 1950.
• three CP passenger cars were adjacent to the North Street roundhouse. Mixed train service ended along with the end of the steam era, circa 1957.
• Canadian Army Staff College training building across Ontario Street from Fort Frontenac are not yet in place. Older buildings on site were demolished around 1952 and the new building built in 1954.That narrowed it down!

Then I logged onto the city's Snapshot Kingston site, which allows various years' aerial imaging to be toggled on/off a particular location. 

• the Imperial Oil bulk tanks on Rideau Street were a very visible spotting feature. The tanks in Barry's photo matched the 1953 year layer exactly.
• the ships and barges moored at Canadian Dredge & Dock also matched 1953 exactly!

Close-up views of the photo. Clarence to Fort Frontenac (above) and Fort Frontenac to Charles (below).

Now, I was only going to take this so far...but I just had to confirm whether the photo was exactly the same. I'm not sure of the source of the Snapshot Kingston photo, but Barry said his is from the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario where he was employed. I counted a few cars parked here and there, and they appeared to match. Here's one difference I noted: 

The smoke emanating from alongside the CD&D dry dock is blowing a slightly different direction, and making a correspondingly different shadow! Either the photo was made on a slightly different pass - note the Snapshot Kingston image is a composite, with a line between stitched-together photos (above) while Barry's excellent photo is all-in-one (below).

As a result of this very enjoyable, brief bit of detective work, I'm calling this aerial photo analysis done, and as a result, I believe Barry's photo was taken from on high in 1953!

While I was examining the photo, I noted numerous pieces of railway rolling stock. Starting on CP:

• north of the North Street roundhouse - 6 freight cars
• at roundhouse - 3 passenger cars and 3-4 freight cars
• Shell bulk tanks - 3 freight cars, probably tank cars
• yard - 7 cars
• station - 2 cars on spurs, 10 at freight shed, the car cleaner's flat car
• Swift dock area - 1 car

And on CN tracks:

• Wellington St. freight shed - 6 and 7 boxcars
• yard - 22+ cars
• PUC propane tanks - 1 propane tank car
• Crawford coal - 3 hopper cars
• Ontario St feed mill - 1 car off-spot
• Topnotch feed mill - 2 box cars

My thanks to Barry for this photo. I'm going to give it a place of honour in my Kingston's Hanley Spur layout room. It's a valuable reference!