Parked Car Parks Train

This little-known drama played out on October 21, 1969.

A CN switcher crew had barely made its way across Ontario Street with the Public Utilities Commission two-storey offices visible in the background (top photo). On their way to the Canadian Locomotive Co. (officially Fairbanks Morse Canada that point) property on Ontario Street to pick up an empty car. Operations had ceased on July 1, with the last load of product being shipped out on June 27 of that year. 

Only the top photo made it past the Whig's photo editor, with horizontal cropping removing much of the excess at top and bottom of the top photo.

The locomotive is not visible, nor is much of the Ontario Northland Railway boxcar it was pushing. We can see at least three crewmen in the photos, with the engineer likely remaining in the locomotive. The conductor eyeing up the Oldsmobile with the newly-built Holiday Inn and Shoal Tower visible in the background:

CN conductor Ron Stevens told the photographer that he "did not have the mobility" to possibly manoeuvre his train, constrained by its sinewy steel pathway around parked cars behind the triangular shaped buildings fronting Ontario Street. Due to the then-infrequent movements along CN rails (the only one of two lines remaining after CP pulled out of its operations in favour of a land deal and the creation of Confederation Park) cars were apparently commonly parking on or near the tracks between Holiday Inn and Confederation Park.

Surprisingly, Whig-Standard photographer Bill Baird was there to document it (all three photos from Queen's University Archives, Kingston Whig-Standard Fonds, V142.7-xx). Interestingly, the pile of cinder blocks in the photos was not impeding the train's progress. Another car is visible on the opposite side of the Oldsmobile:

Cars are still parking there, though the track has been gone for 55 years and no longer complicates the situation! Current Google maps image:

The movement's approximate location and direction of travel towards CLC: