Miscellaneous Hanley Spur Images

Here's an end of the year roundup: the caboose on the fast-moving Kingston's Hanley Spur blog which has grown exponentially in the last two months! Whew! 

Kingston Whig-Standard stock photo published 1973 of the CPR station trackage (top photo). Bollard for tying up oil tankers in the Inner Harbour near the causeway:

Flooding on the Wellington Street side of the CN freight shed, 1951 from Queen's Archives. Woodie!

Flooding along Wellington Street, looking north where trackage should be between Anglin buildings:

 The earlier Davis Tannery:

 Canadian Dredge & Dock tugs, undated:

The Glenbow Archives maintains archives of Imperial Oil installations. These two show the (later) Bailey Broom Factory site at Rideau and Cataraqui Streets. Thanks to Andrew Jeanes for the links.

Tank cars, box cars, and a horse that knows "Whoa!"A second photo taken from the roof of the house in line with the telegraph pole shown in the photo above, looking toward the tank cars down the spur:

From Kingston 300: A Social Snapshot. Some Hanley Spur history written by Cecil E. Day of the Canadian Institute of Guided Ground Transit

And a plug for the CIGGT. A large piece of track machinery was kept at the outer Station for some time.

 Royal Train at the Outer Station in 1951. Note stock pens in background:

Obituary for one of Kingston's better-known coal merchants, appearing in the Ottawa Journal, July 1940:

 From Kingston 300: A Social Snapshot - a nice sketch of Hanley Station by David Holmes:

CP No 612 Eng 485 at Cataraqui, June 25, 1956:

Farther up the K&P (above) and an architectural journal version of Kingston's waterfront, published in 1961:

A rather sad view - where once the mightly Limiteds trod...from Charles Cooper's Railway Pages, 1996. Single track only:

And two views of the Outer Station in HO scale on my layout...hope for the future. Happy New Year, 2019 and thanks for being aboard this blog! 

- Eric

Rideau & Cataraqui Sts., 1911, 1947 and 1963

Lots of changes at this busy, gritty, industrial intersection in the intervening 16 years between 1947 and 1963! The transition of the Bailey Broom Factory from oil dealership to roofing shop. Expansion of the National Grocers building, (including cold storage!) and interesting fuelling options - oil vs. coal! The starting point, 1911 fire insurance map while the durable Bailey Broom Factory building was still making a clean sweep (top).

1947 (above) and 1963 (below) Tons of prototype and modelling operational interest and detail here! Thanks, G.H.!

Hanley Spur HO Scale Layout Update, December 20, 2018

A very, very preliminary video of layout progress representing CN and CP lines to Kingston's waterfront. All track is now in place. I've operated one CP train which switched two warehouses, the coal trestle on the waterfront, I Cohen and Quattrocchi's on the way back! Structures and backdrops, plus scenery await. Click here to watch two minutes in the life of a layout.

Matchbook Ads and More

Vintage advertising can come in handy - for signs, vehicles and more. Got a light?

Kingston Directories 1867 to 1918

City directories listed addresses, businesses, street-by-street listings, clubs and organizations and included some neat ads. Today we would call them 'vintage'! The first two are from an 1867 directory, the next four are from a 1881 Kingston directory....

Breweries loomed large in the listings, as did jewellers, pianoforte dealers, carriageworks and curtainmakers.

"Fast forward" to 1905: 

Another city directory, this one from 1918 has a nice cover and more ads. I honed in on the street-by-street listings, where fledgling industries are listed.  Also posted by Collections Canada.

The Shortest Distance Between Two Points

While repeatedly sketching track plans* for my new modelled locale, Kingston's Hanley Spur, I had a dickens of a time trying to get industries in a straight line. (*plans in name only, and I use the term loosely. Pencil on paper is more accurately sketching or doodling!) 

I've heard that in model railway planning, left=west and right=east. So if east goes with south, and west goes with north, based on real railway scheduling, then left=north and right=south. 

Since my Outer Station yard is on the right, I perceive left=south based on the shape of my benchwork. So I'm immediately going against the current! And based on the benchwork arrangement, plus the need to maintain two lines (CN and CP), as well as the large distance that would normally be required to replicate the spur in scale, there's virtually no way it could be a straight line!

The Hanley Spur trackage, if viewed on a map, starting at the north end of the city and heading downtown, forms a letter 'Y', or a backwards 'J', or perhaps a lazy 'T'.

At our recent ARK Hanley Spur Project meeting, I wryly commented that my track plan would resemble the all-points, screen-encompassing movements of the presenter's screen saver, darting here and there all around the square! So I tried it! And it turned out that way!

On my good ol' city map showing trackage, I've drawn red boxes around the industry spots I'll model,  each with its own spur. These are, from north to south:

On CN (follow the blue arrows):

• Outer Station yard
• Presland Iron & Steel - Elliott Ave.
• Queen's Interchange (this accounts for the blue arrow exiting the map at top left, heading about half-a-mile-west then mysteriously returning and heading far south) - Rigney St.
• National Grocers warehouse - Cataraqui St.
• Imperial Oil warehouse - North St.
• Freight shed/team track - Wellington St.
• lead to Canadian Locomotive Co. - Ontario St. or beyond.

And on CP (follow the yellow arrows):

• Presland Iron & Steel (jointly-served) - Elliott Ave.
• Gus Marker Cement - Division St.
• Quattrocchi's Produce - Montreal at Railway Sts.
• three warehouses on Railway Street
• C E McPherson - Rideau St.
• River Street diamond (crossing CN)
• I Cohen - Railway St.
• Sowards Coal (this is another far-flung arrow, reaching all the way from Railway Street all the way down to Ontario St.)

In addition, each line incorporates a run-around track to ease trailing-point and facing-point switching tasks. I was pleased to be able to incorporate five industry spots on CN and eight on CP. (We won't highlight the fact that the CN yard is several tracks and the CP has none. But remember, CP was arriving in town from the far north, God's Country, while CN had a switcher here, as well as serving other local industries and only 50 miles from Belleville and Brockville yards).

Hanley Spur Passenger Timetables 1914-1920

The CPR/K&P station on Ontario Street, (top photo-Mattingly collection) is shown in 1952. Decades before, vintage timetables for CN predecessors Grand Trunk Railway, Canadian Northern Railway and the Canadian Pacific Railway serving Kingston in the early part of the last century. 

An ad from the Queen's Journal in 1900 advertising the Suburban service (above).

Canadian Northern Railway 1914

Canadian Pacific Railway 1915

Grand Trunk Railway Eastward 1916 top

Grand Trunk Railway Eastward 1916 middle

GTR Suburban Service 1916 (Hanley Station to Outer Station)

Grand Trunk Railway Westward 1920 top

Grand Trunk Railway Westward 1920 middle