Wandering Wellington Street in Scale Yet Again

S. Anglin offices, Bay and Wellington Streets

I wandered the layout at extreme street level tonight. One iPhone, 75 images, 45 minutes. Fellow modeller and rail enthusiast Mark Perry of Winnipeg made a comment, one that I consider high praise, having seen these photos: 

"Let me first just say I love that Eric shares these images, I love looking at them. They sure tell a story! The story I get from them, is:

A) his layout is a lot more sceniced than most people's layout (including my Plywood Pacific), his efforts need to be applauded for that!

B) it is not the most super detailed 100% accurate layout any of us have ever seen and it doesn't have to be, Eric is happy with it and he probably gets hours and hours of enjoyment doing what he is doing model wise. I think it is killer, I love all the little details instead of the endless new super detailed plastic locomotives and high priced freight cars.

C) model railroading is all about fun, take what you can out of it, after all it is only a simple hobby to enjoy, it is certainly not a way of life. Or is it?"

Sowards Coal office, Place d'Armes

Esso limestone warehouse, North Street

Houses, Wellington Street

Millard & Lumb, Place d'Armes

Bajus Brewery, Wellington Street

Davis Tannery, Rideau Street

Frontenac Floor & Wall Tile, Cassidy Street

K-D Manufacturing, Montreal Street

Quattrocchi's Specialty Foods, Montreal Street at Railway Streets

Dye & Chemical Co. of Canada Ltd., Orchard Street

Pigeons roosting on the roof of Bajus Brewery, Wellington Street

Tank car unloading Queen City Oil Co., Rideau at Cataraqui Streets

National Grocers, Cataraqui Street

 

Cooler Weather: Back to the Hanley Spur

During the spring and summer, my wife and I usually head to our sunroom after supper to enjoy the sunset while pursuing our respective hobbies. Now it's often a little cool in the sunroom in the evening, so it's time for me to spend an hour each night on my HO-scale Kingston's Hanley Spur home model railway layout. 

This past week, I reset the layout after its summer slumber. That means checking and repositioning the freight cars on CN and CP lines, moving vehicles around, cleaning up layout-top detritus and generally preparing to operate the layout after summertime visits from our grandsons. They both enjoy making realistic and sometimes fantastic scenes on and around the layout trackage.  

While doing the reset, I was building a CN switching run that would switch the industries in the vicinity of the CN Outer Station: Frontenac Floor & Wall Tile, the Davis Tannery, CN Express and Presland Iron & Steel. The engine crew is pictured here in one pose but multiple photo angles with my iPhone.

Each night between now and when the weather warms up, I'll be 'on-duty' from 1830-1930 hours each night. With the CBS Evening News and Erin Burnett OutFront keeping me updated on current events in the background, I do a deep dive into 1970s Kingston. I'll be learning about the real-world outside while doing my best to escape it in this tiny world I've created - moving freight cars around and serving Kingston's once-diverse waterfront industries as realistically as possible!

Kingston & Pembroke's Original Enginehouse

Its request refused to build on Fort Frontenac lands, the Kingston & Pembroke (K&P) instead settled on Place d’Armes in 1873. Its principal address was listed as Place d’Armes in 1885. The original station of the K&P in Kingston was built there. It later became the office building for the Frontenac Lumber & Coal Company. A spur was later laid here to serve the Montreal Transportation Company grain elevator. A small two-stall engine shed and turntable was nearby, in use between 1877 and 1883. 

Andrew Jeanes recently shared an excellent analysis of the above photo, made from a glass negative in the Queen's University Archives Vosper Collection. It shows one of my favourite parts of Kingston's industrial waterfront and its trackage. The photo may have been taken from a building on the east side of Barrack Street.

Andrew writes:

The photo shows the lumber yard of the Rathbun Company and the coal yard of the James Sowards Coal & Wood Co. at Place d’Armes and Ontario Street in downtown Kingston. 

Boxcar No. 444 belonged to the National Despatch Line, a private car operator that existed between 1869 and 1914. According to the June 1890 and June 1895 Official Railway Equipment Registers, National Despatch boxcars nos. 400-999 were all assigned to the Grand Trunk Railway, along with about 495 other boxcars in several number series.

James Sowards began conducting a coal and lumber business at the corner of Place d’Armes and Ontario Street in 1889, and the Rathbun Company moved its operations there from the foot of Queen Street in 1893. By 1907, the Frontenac Coal & Lumber Co. had taken over the Rathbun operation, so the photo must date from sometime between 1893 and 1906.

What’s really interesting to me is the building behind the boxcar with the large Rathbun Company sign and smaller Sowards sign on the roof. This was the original Kingston & Pembroke Railway enginehouse, built in November 1877. It was reported in the Whig as 70x53 feet, of frame construction, covered in iron and having a fire-proof roof. There was a turntable in front of this engine house from 1877 to 1883. In the 1908 fire insurance plan the building is labelled iron-clad “storage, cement salt etc."

In 1883 the K&P relocated to its new roundhouse at the foot of North Street, which was still there in the late 1970s. The old turntable at Place d’Armes was removed and the former enginehouse was leased for commercial purposes. The building survived until January 1920, when it was torn down along with a number of other buildings on the property. Today, this site is covered by the reconfigured intersection of Place d’Armes and Ontario Street and a portion of the Frontenac Village condo development.

An aerial view, circa 1915, shows the original K&P station and its engine house at opposite ends of the green line.

The buildings were located at the bottom left of this map:

A 1908 fire insurance map shows the station and engine house along Ontario Street:

Frontenac Lumber and Coal Company circa 1915 (below) Ontario Street at Place d Armes. Earlier, this was the first K&P station (Queen's University Archives, Kingston Picture Collection).

Kingston's Ukrainian Community - New Plaque

Lubomyr Luciuk is a professor of political geography at the Royal Military College of Canada. Excerpts from a Whig article of September 2 in which he describes his childhood in the Swamp Ward are below. Especially interesting are his experiences at several of the waterfront industries - none of which still exist in the locations he remembers:

I’m not a north-ender. From the day I was born, and for all the years I have lived in Kingston, I’ve never made my home in what some people call “the swamp ward.” That’s the portion of our city roughly contained to the north and east of Queen and Division streets. In my time, we used a geographical descriptor, calling it “the north end.” It was a working-class and immigrant part of town, populated by many Irish, Italian, Polish, Ukrainian and other eastern European immigrants and their kids. The homes I visited were modest, they were always tidy, warm and welcoming. Most had large gardens, well-tended sources providing nutritious food, not all of which was intended only for family. Guests were always served something good to eat, an almost ritual observance. To this day, the redolence of a homemade cabbage soup simmering on a stove brings back memories of the simple but delicious food I ate in “the north end.” 

We enjoyed exploring our neighbourhood as kids. We’d furtively hop the fence of an adjacent lumberyard to construct hiding spots amongst the piled timbers. Not safe, but fun. And, a bit further afield, astride Rideau Street, we’d foray into rather gritty industrial properties, everything from Rosen Fuels (which supplied our family’s Nelson Street home with coal) to the Anglin Company’s massive oil storage tanks. And, nearby, was the odiferous Davis Tannery. I got a summer job there in my senior high school year. I lasted but a day: the fetid smells and toil were all too much. Yet this experience taught me about how tough those who got and kept jobs there had to be. 

On a list of Davis Tannery employees, I found the name of John (Ivan) Zubyck, quite possibly the first Ukrainian to settle in Kingston. Hired in March 1911, he married 20-year-old Ida Adrain, April 20, 1917. Although his marriage certificate identified him as an “Austrian” he was gainfully employed and a married man. Most of the other tannery workers I met arrived in Kingston much later. Among them were Mike Polomany (hired in December 1926), Ivan Zaplotinsky (who began working in February 1927) and Sylvester Kotowich (employed as of September 1935). Many boarded close to where they worked and were still living nearby when I spoke to them in the mid-late 1970s. They were true “north enders.” 

Of course, depicting all this history on one plaque is impossible. Even so by unveiling a Kingston Remembers monument in Riverview Park, not far from where many of our people worked and lived and played – myself among them – we’ve tried to remind others that we were here and who we were. 

A September 5 Kingston This Week article covered the ceremony that occurred in Riverview Park at 129 Rideau Street on August 24. A Kingston Remembers: Enduring Roots plaque (top photo) was unveiled. (The location is variously and somewhat confusingly described as 'downtown', 'north end' and even 'east end'!)

Lubomyr is quoted in the article, perhaps paraphrasing the above in his remarks, "I'm an old guy now. I grew up over on Nelson Street, but I used to play in the Ukrainian Hall that opened up here on Bagot and North Streets. This was a neighbourhood that I roamed. I'd go down to the Davis Tannery. I'd go to the Rosen Fuels yard and the Anglin tanks, and we'd go to a timber yard and build forts. This is the Kingston I remember, the north end, as a boy. This was the immigrant, working-class Ukrainian area. It's just a good memory."

Kingston History - Pushing the Envelope(s)

The British North America Philatelic Society held its annual national exhibition in Kingston this year, at the St Lawrence College Event Centre. Featured among the many framed exhibits were those profiling Kingston history in philatelic items. Here's a selection of photos of some specific exhibits on transportation/industrial subjects that caught my eye, albeit with pesky glass reflections from the exhibit frames:

Also on display were many frames showing prisoner-of-war mail to and from Fort Henry during both world wars. 
 

The Buses of Kingston, 1930-1962

Trying to get photographic context that shows Kingston, in somewhat-recognizable places, given the changes that have taken place over the years in our street scenes! Photos in this post, unless otherwise noted, courtesy of former Colonial Coach Lines mechanic and transit enthusiast Kingston's own John Carey. Posed on the hill just east of Kingston Penitentiary, two Kingston City Coach buses with Portsmouth-Princess route-signs (top photo - 1930 Reo; below - possibly Leyland).

Two views of what appears to be the same 29-passenger Leyland, parked outside the LaSalle Hotel, Bagot and Princess Streets (above and below). John noted that the old and newer parts (yellow brick) of the hotel were discernible above the bus roof. Cheese it! It's the coppers!

A Whig clipping from September 6, 1930 described the new buses: 

On a wintry February 23, 1934, a procession of three Leylands lined up for a charter outside Ban Righ Hall, on what was formerly Queen's Crescent:

A 1935 GMC numbered 352 posed in front of the Frontenac County Court House. Notice the patriotic flag-draped decorating job and '21st Battalion' on the front bumper. Perhaps this was for a major 21st Battalion Club service, held at the Cricket Field on May 7, 1935 marking the Silver Jubilee of King George V and the 20th anniversary of the battalion's departure from Kingston overseas for World War I. John noted that the Coast to Coast - Montreal to Vancouver - New York to L.A. lettering pertained perhaps to connecting routes grandiosely.

A 1934 GMC product, possibly a Model U, takes on passengers at Royal Military College:

Coach 39 was a GM Yellow Coach, built in Pontiac (Detroit), Michigan with a Buick or Cadillac engine. Converted to city use in Kingston, having wooden-slat seats, it continued in use until after World War II. John mentioned that he rode in this vintage bus many times coming home from St. Mary's school in 1945-46. Route-sign says 'Barriefield'. A route begun in 1946 gave Kingston City Coach the right to reach Barriefield, Vimy, the nylon plant and Norman Rogers airport. This coach was also used on an extra run to the Front Road nylon plant at the same time to pick up workers coming off-shirt at 4:30 in the afternoon. John remembers driver Alfie Ball picking him up at Clergy and Princess Streets, thence to Victoria or John's home on Mack Street heading out to the nylon plant. For a lark, he would turn the ignition off, then turn it back on! The Kingston Armoury in Montreal Street can be seen in the background behind this parking lot used for bus storage.

Photographed at Oscar Cook's garage near Ontario and Queen streets, a 1930 Reo:

Kingston City Coach's 1935 Macks were built in Allentown, PA and carried across the St. Lawrence River by Ogdensburg-Prescott ferry. As delivered with no back door, this page shows John's post-it notes with additional information pertaining to each photo. These photos came from Ted Baker, the most senior Colonial driver who started in 1930: 

Photographed at the Queen Street-side Colonial Coach Lines garage entrance (below) driver Merrill Weekes was also a noted vehicle enthusiast in this area in later years. A World War II veteran, Merrill left us in 2022 at the age of 99, and his obituary mentions that he usually had either a wrench or a steering-wheel in his hands! Bus 397 is a 1939 GM model 742, among the first equipped with a pusher 707 six-cylinder diesel engine with dual ignition.

Bagot & Princess Streets - August 24, 1948. An expensive Lincoln sedan rear-ended by a Kingston City Coach Ford at one in the afternoon. The Whig gave the incident about one column-inch, noting that the car was driven by C. Leounis of Binghamton, NY and that the bus's air-brakes may have led to the collision. 

The Topnotch feed mill's tower is visible in background, with Fort Frontenac's wall and limestone quarters  behind four 1937 GMC buses destined for Montreal, stylish but no longer in service during John's tenure as a mechanic:

A 1947 photo showing all-new coaches open for inspection in Market Square, likely taken from upper storeys of the Whig building. Is that the ferry peeking out from between the west wing of City Hall and the Prince George Hotel? These are model 3702-3703, model years 1945-48, powered by GM 4-71 diesel engines. John says, "They were real workhorses", and that "If there's a better bus built, GM builds them".

While viewing the photo above, John noted that the Prince George and the Frontenac Hotel, next to it, were rough beer parlours. The British-American Hotel was one street over on Clarence Street. His uncle Ace was in charge of the Brock Street firehall the night the B-A burned down, nearly losing his life becoming disoriented in the upper stories of the 60-room hotel on March 19, 1963. Photographer George Lilley's studio at 34-40 Clarence Street was fortuitously undamaged. Expanded in the 1960s, the B-A still had some fireplace-equipped rooms!

Two old Kingston City Coach Leylands posed along the Inner Harbour. John said that #44 (above - route sign Portsmouth) used to make the nightly run to Vimy and Norman Rogers, and that #45 (Portsmouth-Princess - below) was right-hand drive and did passenger runs in the city during World War II.

Another photo of Kingston City Coach Mack 54, posed at Market Square, route-sign 'Sightseeing':

Built in 1944, (i.e. 4400-series) GM 3608's came from Montreal suburban routes, renumbered, then used in service in Kingston. John noted that they were in service for a long time, with a six-cylinder gas engine. This photo print is dated Sep-1962, taken near the site of the former electric railway carbarns, with the Ontario Street Topnotch feed mill in background - after Colonial had left their garage. The city acquired 15 Brill buses from Colonial in 1962, paying $411 each to repaint them at Edwards Ford.

A 1952 Kingston Public Transit System Brill AEC English Diesel bus that began its service in Montreal. Revamped in 1956 with rear door added then sent to Kingston City Coach. John noted that these European engines required Metric tools to be ordered in order to work on them!