Village Squire, 1977-01, Page 9toL*t
� U
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Nightgowns.
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the wcbgc
8 King Street, Clinton 482-7735
WINTER STORE HOURS:
Monday - Friday 12:30 - 5:30 p.m.
Closed Wednesday
Saturday 10 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
4
Clinton and Wingham on the north -south run. The hardest hit
places were Belgrave and Londesboro. Wingham had its
east -west C.N.R. line. Blyth had its east -west C.P.R. line, but
the little villages had nothing. C. R. Coultes a drover at
Belgrave was one of the hardest hit. He had shipped 120
carloads of cattle on the line in 1940.
So the line was to close. No word was given as to when the
last train would run. In late March word leaked out that no
freight was being accepted for points along the line after April
12. Then finally came word that the last train would run on the
northern line on Saturday, April 26.
Few people, reported Blyth Standard editor Ken
Whitmore, were on hand to say goodbye when the last train
rolled into Blyth station. It was in the end as it had been so
often, about a half hour late arriving from Clinton on the trip
north to Wingham.
Train officials and local officials were on hand for a last
handshake. Many of the passengers were there for
sentimental reasons. Among them was Mrs. Ben Mason of
Blyth who remembered the arrival of the first train in
Londesboro as a girl. Another was James Lockie of Blyth, for
36 years a section foreman on the line. But these were among
the few who sorrowed for the train's passing. Most of the
population took it as just another sign of the times. Little did
most of them know that they were seeing just the first act of
an oft repeated play in the coming years.
In November the express service by truck that was
supposed to replace the train was discontinued too.
The line south of Clinton remained active. But in the
mid -fifties passenger service was stopped on it too, just as in
the early 1970's passenger service was to be abandoned in
nearly all of the smaller centres, leaving some places without
any public transportation of any kind.
C. H. Coultes back in 1940 argued that the price of gas
could.go to 40 cents a gallon and turn people back to the
railways. Today, with the price climbing even closer to the
dollar mark people have no railways to turn back to.
Now they're all gone, like the Butter and Eggs Special and
in many cases, not even the pretty little station houses remain
. behind.
\11.51.,0
ANEAP
1144
W. Jos.
Dean Agnew
SCHMID'S
M ay your New Year
be capped with joy
in every direction.
Thanks from us to you.
JEWELLERY
AND CHINA
Lucknow
Villape Squire/Januar 1977. 7