Kingston's Hanley Spur

Sunday, 8 November 2026

Index of Posts

Blogger's software does not make it easy to find a particular post in a blog. Here's a list of the most noteworthy Hanley Spur Blog posts. How this list is designed and maintained:

Three sections - Prototype, Model and Other categories.
Newest posts in each section are at top.
The index had its annual update as of November 8, 2026 (10 previous year's posts added).
Seven years' posts back to the origin of this blog in November, 2018.

History of the Prototype

Model: My Hanley Spur Layout

Updates and Other

Producing this index of posts was inspired by Stephen Gardiner's well-organized blog. I trust you'll find it ueful if researching a prototype location, industry, event or era. The Model section lists posts in which I model a building, location or facet of operation. The Update section includes ancillary posts - research, walking tours or other resources.

Saturday, 31 October 2026

Trucks on Streets - Vehicles for History

Despite a cursory treatment of streets found during my modelled era on Kingston's streets (coal dealers and ambulance, for example) I'm preparing for a major vehicle project this winter. I have accumulated wheels and unsuitable Hot Wheels/Matchbox models that just need to be put together and decorated in realistic Kingston commercial paint schemes. This post includes some street scenes and vehicles for inspiration.

City Hall and the gardens surrounding the CPR station opposite City Hall (top photo). The first photo I've ever seen of the back of the Grand Trunk freight office along Ontario Street and a classic Ford or two. A sailing vessel's three masts complete the scene along with a small winch and two tracks hosting a boxcar each:

Also near City Hall, a vintage truck with a cargo of what look like potatoes, with a Canadian Northern boxcar in background. That's the water tower atop the [later] S&R building at far right:

Newspaper ad photo showing Anglin/Shell fuel truck lettering:

Anglin coal truck 'blue coal':

MacCosham Van Lines Ltd. stake truck at a downtown intersection:

Watch for more images here as I gather gumption to accelerate this project and get it into gear.

Wednesday, 28 October 2026

October 28, 1966

I hold up an old slide - its cardboard mount stamped "OCT-66".

Its overexposed image, faded and colour-shifted in the intervening years since it was exposed.

An RS-18 burbling away, the brakeman walking in the yard at Kingston's Outer Station.

It was taken in a time when boxcars were still shunted for local businesses.

A time when trains were still holding on as a preferred mode of shipping.

But that time was slipping away, and the railways knew it.

* * * * *

But tonight, it's October 28, 2026 and the boxcars that are being shunted are in HO scale.

The yard slumbered all summer but now it wakes.

The sun sets sooner and the air turns cooler.

Down here it's always 1966.

Time stands still.

And the wheels still turn.

Tuesday, 20 October 2026

Later Life Learning comes calling

Back in February, I received a friendly email from Clare Williams at the Kingston Seniors Centre:

"In September of 2023, the Seniors Association Kingston Region took over the long-running Later Life Learning series. As you may know, Later Life Learning has been an integral part of the Kingston educational landscape for more than 30 years, offering a diverse selection of scholarly lectures on important and/or topical themes.

The series have been very popular at The Centre, with more than 150 older adults attending each lecture. The theme for our Oct/Nov 2026 series is “The Great Kingston Stories Series”. I am hoping you might be interested in doing a presentation on Kingston railways. The lectures take place at the Centre, on Friday mornings from 10am to noon. Generally the talks are 45 – 60 mins, with a break for coffee, followed by questions from the audience. Our presenters have found this to be a very rewarding experience, as our audience members are intelligent, engaged and interested in learning."

Well, that was in February and it's nearly November now. Time to get to work! One Apple Pages presentation, 80 slides, in one day. I've been told to expect 160 attendees and to use nothing smaller than 28 pt on my slides! I am sure that during the Q&A someone will ask me what I think about ALTO. I'm prepared to say that we're here to talk history, not the future. But as we all know, every day we are making history.

I've been to the Seniors Centre only once, for a book sale. But our late neighbour was there many times. Pat was a tireless volunteer and as an increasingly skilled watercolour artist. She taught art classes at the Centre, and took part in yoga classes there. Many years ago, she suggested I come to a Later Life Learning talk by Kingston historian and author Steven Manders. I was not able to get the time off work. As I often say, work gets in the way. Not any more. I will be there with Pat on my mind on the 13th. Life has come full circle. From potential attendee to presenter, I think Pat would be proud.

Just one of many brushes with fate that I have experienced since starting on this Hanley Spur journey!

Sunday, 18 October 2026

I Know What My Layout Did Last Summer

Time stands still all summer long on my HO scale Kingston's Hanley Spur layout. (Of course, it's always 1966, but I don't mean that type of time. Once the weather turns more favourable, evenings aren't spent in scale subterranean subterfuge. Out into the nice weather we go. Speaking tautologically, the layout slumbers somnolently.

The layout's train register shows that Esso's limestone warehouse in Kingston (top photo) was last switched on April 17, 2026. The final train to operate after that was a CP switcher on May 2, 2026. Well, those were the last official trains. Since then, our two grandsons have visited, and of course spent time at the layout.

Prepping for a return to fall operations, I snapped a few quick photos of what happened last summer, with little fingers creatively positioning people and vehicles recreating imaginative scenes that 8- and 6-year olds dream up!

My heart rate doubles while they're creating these scenes. Fortunately, very little happens that can't be remedied with subsequent repositioning and the occasional application of glue. Both boys are actually very careful. And I don't want to be that grandpa that doesn't let them enjoy the layout in their own way!

Sunday, 11 October 2026

Royal Train at Kingston, 1951

...16 seconds.

That's all the time Kingston receives out of a 51-minute National Film Board documentary entitled 'Royal Journey' portraying the five-week visit of Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh to Canada and the United States in the fall of 1951. Stops on the royal tour include Québec City, the National War Memorial in Ottawa, the Trenton Air Force Base [sic - in Toronto according to the YouTube description], a performance of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in Regina and visits to Calgary and Edmonton. The 33-day tour was shorter than the groundbreaking and extensive 1939 tour by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth that stopped in Kingston on May 21 of that year.

My brother Dave just published a post on the Royal Tour of 1951, leading off with the photo at top. Perhaps this was a case of friendly 'trolling' on the internet* knowing my interest in all things Kingston and railway and old-timey. Dave also published this earlier post on the 1951 Royal Tour which shows the subject of the Royal Couple's visit to Kingston and its Royal Military College. That Friday, October 12, 1951 was busy - the day's itinerary covered Cornwall to Toronto with another stop at the RCAF Station in Trenton. Watch out, press photographer on the platform!

These screenshots from those 16 seconds (starting at the 7:22 mark of the documentary) show in remarkable colour fidelity not only the marker lamp-equipped CPR 12-1 sleeper Southminster on the accompanying 13-car press train led by CNR 6403, but also white flag-flying sister U-4-a locomotive 6401 shined within an inch of its life passing the water plug at the east end of the Kingston Outer Station on Montreal Street at 11:20 a.m. Stores as far away as Napanee closed in honour of the royal visit. The Royal Couple would arrive again by train at that station in 1973.

By newspaper accounts it was a crisp, sunny fall day, high temperature in the low 50's F. There was a waiting guard of honour from Barriefield's Royal Canadian Electrical & Mechanical Engineers School and the Vimy School of Signals. The Royal Salute was played by the PWOR Band. Made of Kingston aluminum, the key to the city was presented by Mayor A.C. Curtis in a box lined with Kingston nylon. Note the CN yard's stock-loading pens at right - had they been freshly white-washed?

As usual, the original archival photo shows better resolution and cropping (above - Queen's University Archives, Kingston Picture Collection, V23-Vis-10) than the Whig version (below).

A scant 11 minutes was spent at the station before the motorcade drove into the city. The Kingston visit was twice as long as the NFB film! Carrying the markers on the Royal Train was Government of Canada car 1 with GoC 2 just ahead.

Go to the movies!

*Dave, it worked, and here's a post to prove it!

Saturday, 5 September 2026

Out Montreal Street

Jamie Emerton has been researching Elder's Beverages and kindly sent me four photos from Jack Elder's personal collection, shared here with Jamie's consent. The first two are dated 1952 and are taken from the back of the Elder's bottling works at 671 Montreal Street, across the CN Hanley Spur looking toward the Inner Harbour.

Just what I like about the Hanley Spur. Gritty, dirty, environmentally-incorrect. The top photo shows what looks to be an incinerator or furnace behind the Elder's buildings. A sign reads 'Sparkling Jamaica [Dry Ginger Ale]...Tastes..."

Two new CLC units (one CPA16-4 and one CPB16-4) for CP are taking a test run up the Hanley Spur, perhaps being taken up to the mainline for delivery.. Notable landmarks are the North American smelter smokestack at left and tannery smokestack at right. If this is 4053, which it appears to be in this slightly-blurred image, that checks out because with mid-1952 delivery dates for this series:

4052-4449 Jun 26/52 (although all listed as mated with respective B-unit for delivery)
4053-4450 Jul 25/52
4054-4451 Aug 25/52
4055-4452 Sep 19/52
4056-4453 Sep 26/52
4057-4454 Sep 30/52

The units' future looks bright on this sunny day. (Postcard image of workaday CP 4053 below, in service at Nelson BC.) But typical of most CLC diesel products, their life span was uniformly short - half that of CLC's steam products. The CPA16-4's were all scrapped between 1969 and 1975.

Two 1975 aerial views of Elder's neighbourhood. The first looks along Railway Street to Montreal Street. I've added an arrow to point out a CN insulated boxcar set out at Quattrocchi's, the only freight car visible. At this time, with the realignment of CN's mainline between Division and Montreal Streets, former CP-served industries were switched via a connection and agreement with CN.

More tightly-framed at Railway and Montreal Streets, the sprawling operation is K-D Manufacturing is at centre, with Elder's across Montreal Street. An unknown boxcar is again visible spotted at Quattrocchi's, with the CP spurs serving I.Cohen and MacCosham/Gamble Robinson, branching off to right:

My thanks to Jamie for sharing these remarkable images!