Switchman's Shanty on Ontario Street

A switchtender had a cabin near where Ontario Street and meets Barrack Street to control CN and CP train movements just east of City Hall. It was opposite the cornerwall surrounding the Tete de Pont barracks. (Top photo - from Kingston Picture Collection, Queen's University Archives. Though it's undated, the car is a 1953 or 1954 Ford Fairlane). The track almost buried in the road's shoulder is NOT the joint section that CN and CP shared. The joint section is on the far side of the shanty, and the track in foreground is the spur to a feed mill. Millard & Lumb is just visible in background. The shanty is the kind of structure that no-one would photograph on its own, though its location can be discerned from other photos: I was able to photograph the original and focus in on several details:

Cities Service tank cars, and the shanty steps and door (above - glare is on the original) Note the signal for trains on short signal mast on shanty:

Rotary Club welcome sign and lettering on Millard & Lumb, "Electric and Gas Welding - Steamship and Boiler Repairs - Millard & Lumb"

A photo of the cabin, taken at Barrack Street captioned 1930 from the late Charles Cooper. Note that the Fort Frontenac gate at right extends outward toward Ontario Street. This was a traffic bottleneck and its inversion into the fort was planned in 1930, obviously after this photo was taken. In the distance is Sowards Coal, with the Montreal Transportation Co. elevator spur crossing Ontario Street. Note the switch tender sitting outside and the two semaphores attached to the cabin, later reduced to one. 

The CP designation was Mi. 103.3-103.4 of its Kingston Subdivision, and Mi 2.2-2.3 (1970's)  of CN's Hanley Spur. Tommy Smith was a peg-legged railway switchman who opened the switch for the Kingston & Pembroke (CPR) trains to cross the GTR/CNR. It was common for injured employees to be given flagman jobs. He rated his own listing in the Kingston city directory, 1923:

What Tommy was guarding - the joint track across Ontario Street, where a CP steam-led train heads north out of Kingston with its two wooden coaches in tow and the Public Utilities Commission building at right:  

A 1950 CN employees' timetable gives instructions for operations at the crossing:

Mileage 1.79 - 1.94 Joint section with CP Rly. Signal located on north side of cabin Mileage 1.79 governs CNR westward movement. Signal located on south side of cabin governs CPR westward movement. Day signalman only. When Signalman on duty, trains and engines of CNR and CPR westward must stop before passing signal and proceed only on receiving flag signal from signalman. Signalman must precede and flag each westward movement over joint section. CNR eastward movement – Rule 93 governs. When signalman not on duty – CNR signal will indicate Proceed and CPR signal will indicate Stop and so left for uninterrupted movement of CNR trains and engines. Movement of CPR trains and engines over joint section must be made under flag protection and rear of such trains must also be protected against CNR trains by leaving Flagman at the entrance to the joint tracks.

After Mr Smith's death, a CN employee was responsible for walking over from the Wellington Street freight shed to operate the switches.

The shack can be just visualized on aerial photos taken in 1920 (above and below):

Close-up view:

Queen's University Archives, 1950 (below). The shanty remained in place until 1964.

 1964 aerial photo - the shanty is gone: 

And a summer, 1963 Queen's University Archives photo of a CN crew working on the switch that joined the CN and CP into the joint trackage shows what would have been the shanty's location, behind the track gang and just across from the corner wall of Fort Frontenac: 

By 1963, there was no mention of the signalman in a CN employees' timetable (below). CP movements simply had to 'flag' their progress. Instructions for the crossing disappeared altogether from CN employees' timetables between 1971 and 1977.