Friend of Coolopolis MP and I supplied this photo of a now-silenced steamwhistle on a building on Westminster that once provided a soundscape to his childhood in Montreal.Steamwhistles were common back then and used industrial sites, such as railways and and on the Lachine Canal.
The one that stood out was at the roundhouse at the top of Westminster. It told CPR rail employees when shifts started and ended and when to take their breaks. The one photographed was affixed to the roundhouse that was build just prior to 1949.
You could think of the whistles as a sort of industrial version of the church bell, as people would use it as a reminder of the time.
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| MP & I in a very difficult-to-shoot mountaintop selfie |
The whistle went silent sometime in the 1960s as more residents came to the area.
I remember hearing the 8 am and noon whistles regularly from Montreal West - I think their sources were in Lachine. Then there were the air raid sirens (which would sometimes go off for no reason) - there was one in the MW town yards which would be tested a couple of times a year.
ReplyDeleteWell, I hoped to be lucent yesterday, but, with old age comes senility, infection and surgeries.
ReplyDeleteHad to undergo a TURP 18 months ago, and that was a slow down, but corrected the main problem, a concomitant 5CM Dirverticulum left in place in the interim.
Blah, Blah, Blah. Another old man whining in his Geritol. ( At least he not maundering on about the Tramways, or the fish & chip place @ Decarie and Dalou, again!! )
Anyway the once-prevalant infections I hoped were cured returned with a vengeance Sunday and I spent 36 hours in bed shaking like a leaf, teeth ( mine ) rattling on the glass.
So, thats the end of Mountain Biking for a while, maybe Friday?
I was TOO SICK to Blog!! A double-edged sword???
Now, re the whistles.
There were three 3 we could hear @ Chester and W. Broadway.
( In the mid-fifties a sign was put up to the east of the CPR tracks down where the gate was by Consumers Glass, which stated 'City Limits' and Locomotive Engineers were prohibited by employee time table from using whistle, except for signals or emergency, inside City Limits as demarked by sign, which eliminated whistles @ CSL and later-Adalbert. When we DID hear a train whistle, there, it often meant the 'Dayliner' had killed another one that had stepped out from behind a Caboose going the other way, three track there. )
The closest and dominant whistle, and possibly the largest? was the one at CPR St. Luc a deep-toned one, which blew at 8 AM, 12 Noon, 1220 PM ( end of lunch? ) and 4 PM. to advise outdoor workers of time and breaks.
I assume the whistle could be used to summon emergency crews in yard if a collision or fire amongst cars and their cargoes.
St. Luc was way out in the middle of nowhere when constructed as per 1947 views taken where it ultimately would be situated, the whislte large enough to be heard over to the Hump over by Pare & Blue Bonnets.
View from CPR Hump St Luc w/CPR employee bus looking East towards Decarie after 1954.
http://www.trainweb.org/oldtimetrains/images/8454_4401_bus.jpg
Angus Shops had their own fire dept. and truck, and an 8-foot whistle, featured in the Company magazine.
There were two other whistles, one to the SE, which I ASSUME MAY have been at the the CPR Westmount/Glen yards on NE corner of Decarie and St. J., where the new hospital is to go.
According to some sources, where the CPR Glen and roundhouse was situated was constructed on 'made land' and fill brought by the trainload from where? as not room there to South of then-CPR main line to Windsor Station in late 1800, the facility near Mountain too small.
Makes one wonder if whole slope may well slough out someday from rain overkill??
The Tramways car barns used to be directly below.
A Zig Zag spur descended from CPR East of Westmount and served industries below including the tobacco plant. See 1947 views, and would explain freight trains with cabooses passing thru Montreal West Station from time to time.
CNR served the tobacco plant from the South side.
The third whistle was to the SW, and may have been at Dominion Bridge?? or CC&F??, both plants having a large area with large outside workforce.
There was a photo on the Internet showing 'The Glen' ( a small valley ) with a trestle crossing it, and this might have been the source of the name 'The Glen' to CPRers back before 1900s.
When the World was worrying about Nuclear War, those air raid sirens were installed Canada-wide, and would be operated from Ottawa.
A Test was held c. 1962, and the sonorous tone rose and fell as the sirens rotated on their poles.
When the 'All Clear' was to be sounded, a steady tone was to be heard.
It never came. 'Someone in Ottawa' had misplaced the key, so the story says.
I froze outside waiting for it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tzYuPBjbpM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxGoEovZXso
Thank You. again.
Darn. I was born in 1958 and know them only from The Flintstones.
ReplyDeleteI was born in 1954 and lived on Elm Ave. in Westmount. My earliest memories are of regular steam whistles in the morning. I was three or four so had no idea where they were but there were more than one. My theory is that depending on the wind they were probably the one at the CPR Glen yards, and maybe all the way from the Northern Electric building, assuming it had one too. Turcot Roundhouse probably had a steam whistle as well.
ReplyDeleteI've wondered about the stability of the fill at the Glen also. There was a small landslide after all the tracks were torn up, about fifteen years ago, and mud slid from the east end of the cliff down to the chainlink fence along Glen Road. It was about where the new access road is today.