Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutClinton News-Record, 1975-07-24, Page 68rF i sto 7 RoUways*n4 Assocletedstr arc*ures' Cclght 1075 . by "reraldEremlhi It is improbable that' Clinton would have tievelo#ed beyond being a ersroads hamlet had it not been reached at an early date by the railways, and it. Was un- daubtedly in antler#ion or- its corning that"Witiiatn l attenbury laid out a street grid in l$55 Some indication of the im- portance of the railroad is given by the traffic at Clinton in Sep- termer 1881, in carloadlots as follows: grain, 47; flour.. :7; livestock, ; salt, 16, apptyes, 5, three hundred and sixty-five tons of freight were received, and 1.750 passengers departed. More grain and salt could have been shipped but for the shortage of cars. At that time the town was normally served by 14. trains a day. freight and passenger. It is understood ' that the "i'illivrar converted to burning. roil about 1880 but before that, ererd was 'the fuel used. the applying of which was . in►rtnint to the local economy. Far -sample. in December 1875the (.;rand Trunk bought 3,000 cords at' wood at Clinton. The wood was normally delivered by the far- mers in four -foot lengths. but the Grand Trunk would apparently aka bus dogs and cut them to length a ith.ar portable saw at the yards. t the : ueh saw that was at the yards in 1875 had a capacity of l;.' jJci*rds day, The Buffalo and Lake Huron Railway reached Clinton in 185? and Was completed to Goderich the following year, The first railway station at Clinton wasat the northwest corner of the in- tersection of the railway and the London Bold.. with freight sheds adjoining to the , west. The stockyards at the, southwest corner ed the crossing were not built uintii 1894. It was the Town that built the stockyards and the weigh ::carle rather than the rarilwaiy company. Previous to - this. cattle were assembled and weighed at the Market Square .end driven directly to the cattle rare at the station. There is a ,snort that there was a fur - oil tire factory on the site of the stockyards in 1846 but nothing is known of it. The London Huron and Bruce Kailwayi. from London . (Hyde Park ) to Wingham: reached r'iinteyra in 1875 and opened for t raffle on the last day of the year. Shortly after it was opened it was taken over by the Great Western, and about 1882 the Great Western amalgamated with the Grand Trunk.. which had earlier taken "The station was a centre of activity that has no modern equivalent." over the Buffalo and Lake.Huron. Initially the G.H. and B. and the Grand Trunk were not linked. but simply crossed each other at the south end Of Erie Street.. This location .became known as "the diamond" from the figure formed by the twin rails crossing each other, and wai also known. as "the junction". After amalgamation the lines ` were linked in September 1882 -by the spur that still exists southwest of Erie Street. The location then gained a third name.."the it", .'from the- figure formed by the spur with the main tines. Semaphores were probably necessarjr before the linkage took place • to • signal traffic 'on the main lines. At any rate. for many years there were four tall semaphores of tubular iron, with ladders, located at a distance from the junction on each of the lines. They were lever -and -wire controlled from a signal house located in the sE eihwest sector of the junction. One of these semaphores was at the foot- of North Street. These was another semaphore. controlled from the station. located east of the Huron Road to control traffic ap- proaching the station. The semaphores and switches were lighted by oil lamps. and were fueled or otherwise maintained from a three -wheeled manually operated jigger that resembled an exercise machine on wheels. Another vanished feature of the railway landscape was the "cattle guards" at each in- tersection of the railway with a road. Their purpose was to keep water tank, large leaks, tare icicles, at the fCittg dal iwa r crossing. livestock off the lines. The cattle guard- consisted of sharp -edged wooden rails laid between and on either side of the steel rails, on which cattle would not step. From the property -fence, a fence extended at right angles to the rail line. The extending fence had a T head on it which abutted on. the sharpened rails at the base, and leaned away at the top to avoid being swiped by Wide Toads; The cattle guard -fences, were fences- were usually whitewashed. It might be added here that the early property fences built by the railroad company were made of horizontal pine boards about which a good deal could be said concerning the provision of kindling wood and the making of rafts. When the 1.14. and B. reached Clinton iirt 1875 as a separate railway from the Grand Trunk, an L.14. and 8. station was built, apparently at Howard Street near the west end of Mary Street. Also, a water tank, possibly with a steam pump. was erected at the intersection of the railroad with the Base Line, north of town. it may have drawn its water from the nearby creek. There was also a large L.H. and B. blacksmith shop for repair work, either at the station or at the water tank, When amalgamation took place and the lines were linked. two stations were an inconvenience and the L.H. and B. station was closed. In 1882 the Grand Trunk abandoned its first station at the London Road and built a new one at the King Street crossing. This was torn down in 1974, although there had been no passenger service for some years per- viously. The line to Wingham was abandoned in 1941., When the L.H. and B. station was closed. the water tank at the Base Line was retained. there being' no- Grand Trunk tank. at Clinton. The remoteness of the tank created some inconvenience in watering the engines. but in the notably severe winter.ef 19034904 the line to the tank was so blocked with snow that trains --were im- mobilized in Clinton for want of water. There had bee' discussion of erecting a !+� tank at the Grand ''; rank station in 1902. ane �, the winter of 1904 ctin- cle —a the argument. In October of that year the new tank was completed. The old -tank at the Base Line was given to farmers willing to move it, in 1965. The new tank was 75 feet high in- ` eluding Abe pole -and -ball that protruded from the top as a gauge to indicate waterievel. and held 100,000 gallons. There was no municipal waterworks in Clinton in 1904. so the railway contracted with the Doherty Organ Company for water, and laid a pipeline to the factory. Town water was used when it • Eventually . the original tank, which was made of Wood. became notoriously leaky, and in cold weather would be literally en- cased in huge icicles. About the mid -1930's it was replaced by a smaller tank. also of wood, which served until the railways were dieseiized after the Second World War. At some time after the original tank was built between "` the Bayfield road and King Strati on the south side of the tracks. a small park was created on the • north side between'` the con- vergence of the roads. It had a lawn. a flower garden, a drinking fountain. and a sturdy roofed seat which attracted unnumbered carvers of initials, seeking im- mortality. Some&wilt remember the locally famous initial carver DWK, who herewith obtains the immortality denied to him by the perishability of wood. The volume of traffic on the railway required fairly extensive yards. and there were three sidings at the station additional to the main line. There was also a spur to McGarva's salt works (see 31) on the south side of the tracks at the foot of Fulton Street. It was probably put in about 1870 and taken up about 1890. In 1899 a spur was , surveyed into the Doherty Organ factory (see 8). het it was severe! ni yeaWore it was installed, due mainly to Richard Irwin's objection to its crossing his property at the Standard Elevator (see 5). Another siding was laid in 1912 on the north side of the tracks,- ex- tending from Isaac Street to Ere" Street. This siding wasc ;tea only to permit one train to pass another. :n.0 was seldom' if ever tt!.0 for joading or unloading freight. It was taken up some time after the Second World War. - A number of structures not covered elsewhere in this article were closely associated with the railroad. Among these are the two sheds just west of the present stockyards. These are on the site of two grain storehouses built by W.H. Perrin at a date un- termined- !n 1903 they were rented by Anises IVIcLeed and ,fames Ford who were in the grain business, and in Airlat 1913 the buildings were burned. The present she, s were built in their place. Until the winter of 1883, relatively little coal was used in Clinton either for domestic or industrial purposes, wood being the preedotbinant fuel. ' In that winter there was ` a severe shortage of wood probably because there wasn't enough snow to permit" the farmers bringing it in by sleigh which was the traditional method. e hardware dealers ca a to the rescue- by bringing in targe quantities of coal. and thereafter coal made strong headway against wood asvtel. especially for industrial pu , .,y . It is believedat the first large coal shed in town was built by Harland Brothers --hardware dealers -.shortly after . 1887 at James Street on the south side of the tracks. The pier of this coal . shed may stili be seen, It is thought to have been demolished after the Second World War; The shed's lineal descendant is A.G. Grigg's ail tank at the corner of Matilda Street apd the tracks. The abandoned cement block office at the site dates from 1913 when the previous office and weigh scale Were burned in ;the same fire that burned McLeod and Ford's ,grain warehouses mentioned in the foregoing. The coal sheds were saved from- the fire. There were other ccs sheds at the southeast of the itztersecction of the Huron Road with the L,H. and B. They were operate -.for many years by. Bill Miller, but their history has not been ob- tained. In 1901, the Queen City Oil Company -built a metal coal .oil tank 32 feet long and 9 feet in diameter. mounted horizontally on four, brick piers, at the southeast corner of the London Road railway crossing. James Howe delivered coal oil from this site using a large tank wagon, to retailers throughout the district, with Goderieh and Seaforth in- cluded in his territory. In 1912 a gasoline tank 20 feet high. mounted vertically, was added. Later there was a similar in- stallation beside the coat sheds at the Huron Road railway crossing. The subsequent history of these installations has not been determined. An interesting sidelight of the history of railways in Clinton was the C.P.R. survey of 1903. When the Guelph to Goderich line (which passes through Blyth and Auburn) was being planned, strong consideration was givers tri muting the new railway iia, .igw Clinton. A route was actually - staked through the town. It entered north of the Elrnhaven Motel and proceededjust urthrof the corner of .T:;nn and North Streets '27, a little south of the tri;spitaal, from where it cut to the south side of Mill Street, and skirting north of the Park and north of the high school, passed eastward into Hultett. The ?oute was obviously no more than an option that was not taken up. For many years the railways were vital to Clinton. and the station was a centre of activity that has no modern etjuivaient. Now, with neither station or freight 'shed it is perhaps not premature to note that an eras h passed. The large object in, the middle foreground is a snowplow on its sidtt with its front .facing the '•antera. Behind it-three(Mmes are off the track. The scene is probably just north of Clinton on the railway toWinghtrm, in tom.