Kingston's Canadian Locomotive Company

Don McQueen and Bill Thomson's seminal book Constructed in Kingston - a History of the Canadian Locomotive Companies 1854-1968 was published by the Kingston Division of the Canadian Railroad Historical Association in 2000. This fine book is among the most complete treatments given to any Canadian railway subject - the definitive history of Kingston's Canadian Locomotive Company (CLC). When I recently set out to profile the historic railway scene of Kingston's waterfront for my own book, it was clear that CLC would be a key chapter.  Not only was I fortunate to have Don McQueen as a contributor, but I also wanted to complement, not duplicate Don and Bill's book. CP H16-44’s 8549-8550, fresh from the CLC plant, rest at CP’s North Street yard. Tank cars are visible in background at Imperial Oil’s warehouse. June 29, 1955. (Dave Stevens photo, Don McQueen collection)

Here is my capsule history of CLC. Photos are mostly from the Queen's University Archives, published in my book with permission. This postscript includes additional photos and ephemera. 

THE EARLY YEARS

In 1854, railway locomotive construction commenced along Ontario Street. The Ontario Foundry built five locomotives for the GTR in 1856 at Mississauga Point. By the year of Confederation, a full-page advertisement for the Canadian Engine and Machinery Company touted the company’s ability to produce locomotive, marine and fire engines. The plant would have more name changes and different owners, and more than 300 locomotives were built in the next few years. In the 1870’s, with the change from broad-gauge to standard-gauge, broad-gauge locomotives with inside connected cylinders which could not be converted, were replaced with new builds. By 1881, the plant was in the hands of well-known Kingstonians, until Scotland’s Dubs & Company took over its management in 1887, building more than 170 locomotives. Between 1887 and 1904, the plant was alone in Canadian locomotive manufacturing. Special Edition of Kingston's Daily British Whig profiling local businesses and their principals, 1909 (above).

Increased competition from the railways’ own Montreal locomotive shops – Canadian Pacific’s Delorimier and the GTR’s Pointe St Charles meant bankruptcy filing and liquidation by Dubs in 1900. The factory was closed for eight months while buyers were sought. Kingstonians purchased the operation for $60,000, reorganizing under the name The Canadian Locomotive Company (CLC) in February, 1901. Nearly 500 locomotives were produced in 11 years – as many as in the previous 50 years! William Harty would remain President until 1911.

CP’s first D10’s were completed in July, 1905. There would be 502 built, 68 at Kingston, including CP 1095 which is displayed opposite City Hall (above, with your humble blogger and siblings in August, 1969 - L.C. Gagnon photo). In June, 1911 the Jarvis group – Canadian and British bankers – added ‘Limited’ to CLC and 2,060 locomotives would be manufactured under that name. There was plant expansion in 1912, including a red-brick erecting shop along Ontario Street. Despite the name changes, generations of Kingstonians would come to call the growing lakefront plant simply “The Loco.” The long expanse of red brick of the 1914 erection shop facing Ontario Street house in-plant erection shop tracks that exited the plant between machine shops. March, 1970. (Queen’s University Archives, George Lilley Fonds, V25.5-38, 39, 41)

THE FIRST WORLD WAR

Europe was then on a war footing, and British financing was hard to secure. Imperial Russia saved the struggling plant with its order for 50 2-10-0 Decapods for the Trans-Siberian Railway. Delivered in 1915-1916 via New York and the newly-completed Panama Canal to Vladivostok, a total of 400 were produced, as were wartime shells and other munitions. Unfortunately, John “Jock” Harty contracted the Spanish Flu while in London during a business trip. Harty, board secretary before becoming President, was a well-known Queen’s University man, and the Queen’s hockey arena would later bear his name.

Employing 1,500 men, having quintupled its workforce in less than 20 years, the plant turned out Mountains, Northerns and Santa Fe types for Canadian National Railways, the GTR’s successor and one of CLC’s best customers. The Santa Fes in particular weighed 655,040 pounds, marking the first applications of Vanderbilt tenders in Canada. Considered the largest locomotives in the British Empire at the time, the Santa Fes would have been quite a sight to see as they made their way to the Outer Station and out onto the mainline. That same routing was taken by CN’s boxcab diesel 9000 on November 20, 1928. Matching unit 9001 was delivered on April 15, 1929 to be mated with the 9000. But locomotive orders were tied to railways’ profits and the between-war years’ Great Depression took an understandable toll. Except for some specialized heavy industry equipment such as ore classifiers, and industrial locomotives, CLC had no orders on the books between 1932 and 1936.

THE SECOND WORLD WAR

Another world war led to another surge in orders. On July 28, 1942 CP 2396 became the 2,000th locomotive produced by CLC. It was proudly but only temporarily painted and photographed with a commemorative crest on its tender and the number 2000 on its maroon-painted running boards (below). That year saw the plant’s highest sales volume in company history. 

Wartime production meant the addition of two more buildings to the site, and a 265-locomotive order for Indian State Railways. Begun in 1943 and extending for seven years, the CWD class 2-8-2’s were shipped in knocked-down form. That meant a boiler and firebox on one flat car, cab and tender on a second, drivers and cylinders on a third, all to be reassembled after their sea voyage to India. 

CLC’s war effort produced warship gun mounts for two-pounder “pom-pom” anti-aircraft guns and depth-charge throwers. A VE-Day victory parade float comprised a stationary firebox-boiler and dozens of plant workers aboard. Many of the workers were women, making up one-sixth of the plant’s wartime labour force. Aerial view of the plant, by now completely land-locked by Lake Ontario in foreground, the Kingston Shipyards at left and houses fronting the other side of Ontario Street up to King Street and downtown Kingston. September, 1948. (Queen's University Archives, George Lilley Fonds V25.6-6-9)

CLC's ad in a 1946 Whig-Standard commemorative edition marking Kingstn's Centenary:

POST-WAR TRANSITION

Concluding CLC’s G5 Pacific-type production for CP, G5d 1272 poses outside the plant. CP 1272-1301 were the last 30 of CP’s 100-locomotive G5 class. More were planned, but dieselization negated that planning. April 3, 1948. (Queen’s University Archives, George Lilley Fonds, V25.5-2-212):

The last steam locomotive built for a Canadian railway was CP 1301, delivered on August 20, 1948. Diesel-electric locomotives were the future, and with General Motors building a new plant in London in 1950, and Montreal Locomotive Works partnering with Alco-GE to produce their designs in Canada, CLC would need a major partner in order to compete. CN returned its first-delivered of 18 Whitcomb-built, CLC-finished 7800-series diesels in 1948, though production errors were traced to the U.S. and the units returned to the builder in Rochelle, Illinois. Undelivered 7800’s lined Ontario Street trackage near the plant before their return. CLC believed it was ready for the steam-to-diesel transition period which Canadian railways were approaching, and that the company was alert and ready to adapt its output to meet their requirements. Whitcomb-built CN 75-ton 7800-series switchers are stored in the shadow of the CLC plant along Ontario Street. Not accepted by CN, their CN logos were papered over before return to the U.S. 1948. (Queen’s University Archives, George Lilley Fonds, V25.5-2)

Those CN switchers are on a storage track that ran from William Street to Gore Street along the factory wall. Another storage track ran along the opposite side of Ontario Street from Gore Street ending at Lower Union Street. The fenced lot enclosing this track was used for storage of completed locomotives or materials by CLC.

THE DIESEL ERA

The plant was sold to Fairbanks Morse in the plant’s centenary year of 1950, after CLC President W.J. Langston reached out to FM and successfully negotiated rights to all FM designs and their opposed-piston engine. American Robert Morse, Jr. became President. The plant had to be modernized. Foundry shops, blacksmith forges, steam hammers and boiler shops with riveters dating to steam days were obsolete. The last steam engine built in Kingston, indeed anywhere in Canada, was one of 120 built for Indian State Railways in 1955-56 with the final one was completed in September, 1956. India's High Commissioner, President of the Canadian Commercial Corporation and other officials pose with the first of the Indian locomotives, produced and shipped under the Colombo Plan on March 18, 1955. (Queen's University Archives, George Lilley Fonds, V25.5-36-149-1, degraded negative):

CLC would build 325 diesels between 1946 and 1968. Industrial equipment product lines were also offered such as Akins classifiers for mining, General American evaporators for pulp and paper, high-capacity kilns for metallurgy, and horizontal filters for sewage plants. CLC held exclusive Canadian rights to manufacture General American, Conkey and Louisville industrial equipment.

A red-letter day for CLC dawned on August 1, 1951. CLC had 1,000 employees with an annual payroll of $2.5 million at the time. A huge crowd assembled around City Hall and Ontario Street for Diesel Day, as the new CLC/FM line premiered. CLC C-Liners 7005-7006, actually CP 4064-4065 re-lettered for CLC, sat on CP trackage for cab tours. (Vintage Kingston Facebook group photo - above).

Steam still handled diesels, as diminutive D4’s dragged new CP diesels over the former K&P line to Tichborne. To heed bridge weight restrictions, a few freight cars separated the heavy diesels, and at Tichborne they were switched out for furtherance to Montreal via Smiths Falls, with the tiny steam train continuing on its way to Renfrew! In steam days, locomotives were always built north-facing with cabs at the south end of the erecting bays. In the case of freight diesels, this was radiator-end north. While many CLC-built steam locomotives lasted 40 years, CN’s CLC diesels lasted only a quarter as long. Officials pose with newly-built CN 8704, now coupled to the head-end of an eastbound freight train at the Outer Station on its way to Montreal for acceptance testing by CN. The train’s locomotive was likely temporarily removed for this publicity photo. May, 1952. (Queen’s University Archives, George Lilley Fonds, V25.5-30-262-30)

A harbinger was CN 3000, later renumbered 2900. Built at FM’s Beloit, Wisconsin plant, the demonstrator, along with CP 8900, were shipped to CLC. When CLC’s Vice-President of Manufacturing handed over the unit’s throttle handle to CN’s J. Ernest Kerr on August 19, 1955, neither of them could know it would be scrapped a mere 11 years later. CP would order 21 of the long units. CP 8900 was received by CP Vice-President D.S. Thomson on July 12. Inconsistent performance by CLC’s led to few repeat orders. CN H24-66 3000, built and shipped north from Fairbanks Morse’s Beloit, WI plant is inspected by officials while on dual-gauge track across from City Hall. August 19, 1955 (Dave Stevens photo, Don McQueen collection)

THE FINAL YEARS

Only seven small locomotives left the plant between 1961 and 1966. In 1965, Fairbanks Morse (Canada) Limited lettering replaced CLC’s on the plant’s wall. Despite production of export diesels for India in 1967, the last locomotive to leave the plant was Calcutta Port Commissioners’ D61 on July 12, 1968. Reorganization in 1968, labour unrest, strike votes, accusations of sabotage and a “runaway” plant switcher up the branchline to an eventual collision with boxcars at Elliott Avenue soured relations between plant management. Nearing the end of an era, workers picket CLC near Ontario and Gore Streets. Former Saskatchewan premier Tommy Douglas visited the strikers to lend his support. May 2, 1969. (Queen’s University Archives, George Lilley Fonds, V25.5-47-196)

In February, 1969 President C.F. Morris was replaced by C. Zillis in St. Johnsbury, VT. Zillis never travelled north to visit the plant. At the time of an April 11 strike vote, CLC workers contended they were making 60 cents an hour less than their counterparts at Alcan or DuPont. The strike affected 120 workers. No agreement was reached on the company’s ultimatum and operations ceased as of July 1, 1969. The last product of the plant, a marine engine, was loaded on to a Halifax-bound flatcar on June 27. 

(Above) CLC in twilight: the plant is quiet as Fairbanks Morse letters have replaced CLC lettering on the façade facing Ontario Street. March, 1970 (Queen’s University Archives, George Lilley Fonds, V25.5-38, 39, 41). 

William Teron purchased original CLC water lots 25 through 29 and the Swift dock at the edge of CLC’s property. When the Ottawa developer’s plans fell through, it was left to the city to purchase the plant and have it demolished by Alpha Demolition Co. in early 1971. (Two photos taken in January, 1971 kindly shared by Leonard Poole). A CN gondola waits to be loaded with scrap (below):

CLC was typical of the smokestack industries that were at one time Kingston's future. We are now generations away from any visible semblance of the plant's existence, or from memories of those who laboured there. 

Whig clippings showing the demolition:

Running extra...

The post that easily gets the most spam comments is the one describing CN's Auto-With-You and Car-Go-Rail services. Commenters with unusual names who try to interest readers in their car services: renting cars, servicing cars, stacking cars, storing cars. Just....cars.

The Kingston Whig-Standard has been posting a weekly History As We Saw It compilation of pages from various decades published in that week. I enjoy finding vintage ads like this one, published at the onset of the Great Depression:

Re-imagining the header. With the advent of a new year, I'm transitioning away from my usual Impact font to a spaced Trebuchet blog title. It started as a mistake (I make those!) (Allot!) but I like the modern, updated feel of it. I trust you do, too. Sometimes, the header photo will extend 'below the fold'. This was the first, but not the last blogheader in which the Trebuchet appeared:

Modelling a Working Scrapyard

Well, not "working" as in piles of steel and aluminum being dumped, pulverised, moved around, loaded, unloaded and all that. Seems the only things motile on my layout are the trains. Everything else is at a standstill. Diggers aren't digging, they're leaning on their shovels. Cars on streets are seemingly at stop signs. One tiny nexus of animation can be my I. Cohen scrapyard.

My scrapyard, like the prototype early Cohen scrapyard in Kingston (above), was on a track shared with other industries. In the above Queen's University Archives photo, the Kingston fire department had extinguished a fire in early February, 1968, and the run-off can be seen across the CP track. The building at right housed batteries, and there's a CP boxcar spotted there. 

In my case, my Cohen scrap yard is a gateway on the spur to Anglin building supplies (British Columbia Railway boxcar - below), Shell Oil, and Canadian Dredge & Dock. Anything going down that spur has to get through Cohen's first. So it's regularly switched, and has only a one-car spot (Soo Line gondola - below):

PUT JUNK IN YOUR JUNKPILE

I use my scrapyard as a junkpile for layout projects. Simply out of the Love of Laziness and the Danger of the Duck-under. Why traipse over the garbage can on my wife's craft-room side, or have one underfoot on my side? Styrene snippings, cardboard cut-offs and bent joiners all get tossed into this little eight inch-square Cornucopia of Crap. The two water bottles show the proximity to my pull-out workbench-on-a-shelf:

TAKE JUNK OUT OF YOUR JUNKPILE

Also due to the Love of Laziness, sometimes it's just easier to find a little piece of this or scrap of that in my scrapyard. When needed for a project, I can fish around in there and usually find just what I need.

USE WHAT'S IN YOUR JUNKPILE

Need a stirring stick, or a glue applicator, or a hole-filler while at the workbench? Just fish around the junkpile and it can usually be found.

EMPTY CARS BECOME FULL CARS

Some carloads remain in open-top cars, like coal (drop-in plastic loads or aquarium substrate). Steel and lumber come out. Scrap comes out (from a loaded car, needed for another load - above), and goes in. (loading a car at the scrapyard - below) Guess where it comes from? Yes, the junkpile. I can even handpick items like rails, large gears, heavier pieces, lighter pieces to do a custom fill. Each scrap load is different.

PRUNE YOUR JUNKPILE

Every so often, I remove and discard some bits of paper, anything too white or too clean, that sticks out like a sore thumb. Some things just get turned over to their less-shiny side.

KEEP THE JUNK ORGANIZED

Well, not too organized, but off the rails (don't want a short-circuit). I put some heavier pieces around the fence to hem the smaller pieces in. Like prototype junkyards, the edges of the property are usually well-circumscribed to keep pickers out. That junk is valuable, you know! 

Out goes another load of scrap, about to cross the CN under the River Street bridge to a distant destination:

Here in Kingston, the early rag-men who picked up everyone's cast-offs built multi-million dollar businesses covering large tracts. For instance, KIMCO on CN's former Aluminum Spur. Check out their website's drone and video footage. 

From  KIMCO's history: 

As a sixteen-year-old immigrant, Hyman Rosen came to Kingston in 1911 to start a new life. Following in his father’s footsteps, he collected rags and bottles with a horse and buggy. Hyman opened his first shop on Charles Street in 1918 under the proud name of H. Rosen. He later moved to a larger lot on Rideau Street taking on the new name of Kingston Scrap Iron & Metal Co.

In 1950, Hyman was joined by his son Irving, who brought with him new and creative ideas, including the baling press which compressed wrecked automobiles into highly compacted bundles of steel. In the 1960’s, Kimco expanded into new steel sales. It also began its refuse operation serving industrial, commercial and construction customers.

October 1975 marked Kimco’s move to its present location on John Counter Blvd. Here, Kimco even further expanded its new steel service center, ferrous and non-ferrous metal division, recycling center and container services. All four divisions began servicing customers within an ever developing radius of Kingston.

BEAUTIFUL JUNKYARDS

I've seen some amazingly realistic, possibly working, junkyards online. The scrap has been shredded, prototypically piled at the correct angle of repose, the ground is suitably weathered, oily and well, junky. The spur trackage looks just right. I aspire to that, but I don't see myself shredding bits of tinfoil, painting and weathering it. I admire those that do. Here's what I'm talking about: 

Canadian - Adam Regush:

European - Sandro Squadroni:

American - Modelrailroadpro:

As you can see, with some minor differences, scrap is like music. It's international!

Running extra...

Hoping you had an enjoyable Christmas, and from all of me here at Trackside Treasure, best wishes for a hopeful and positive 2021. By that, I'm positive it will be better than 2020! I'd like to thank everyone who has ordered my latest book, with 100 copies going out the door in just over a month. Enjoy your reading with a festive beverage! Happy New Year!

Rapido Trains Inc. unwrapped a Christmas gift by announcing their intention to produce the E-8 (their artwork below) in various schemes including CPR, CP Rail and VIA. The good news is you'll only need one* - having been aboard a partially E-8-hauled VIA train, I can attest to that. Need prototype info before you order? You can party like it's 1899! (* unless you're modelling that 1973 Thanksgiving fan trip or CP's Alyth dead line in 1982)

I'm enjoying my Christmas present of a subscription to Railstream web cams. I can watch North American rail traffic from all over, or in my case, Belleville. Here is CN's mid-train military/camo unit passing through Belleville eastward -  CN 3233 on CN No 322 at 2322 just last night! You can railfan safely from your sofa this way - check out the VIA tracking sites in my right sidebar while you're at it!

Merry Christmask 2020

That's no typo in the title!

I'll be home at Christmas; You can`t call on me.

Please don't ask, and wear a mask; It's just my trains and me.

Christmas Eve will find me, in basement quarantine.

I'll be home at Christmas, To wait for my vaccine.

My annual Christmas song and Napanee's streetscape (above). 

My wife's Christmas tile (below)

And now...my Christmas Address

Well, besides staying home at my address, I figure if the Queen can broadcast a Christmas Address, so can I. The inspiration for it was an article entitled Ode to Finding Joy in Loss, about Beethoven. (Get it, Ode..to..Joy?) Written by the Washington Post's Arthur C. Brooks here are some excerpts:

The world is now marking Beethoven's 250th birthday. By 1800, his hearing was in full decline. But what happened as a result changed the world of music. For a long time, Beethoven raged against his decline, insisting on performing, with worse and worse results. His friend and fellow composer Ludwig Spohr wrote, "I was deeply saddened at so hard a fate". In the last decade of Beethoven's life (he died at 56), his deafness was complete, so music could reside only in his imagination. 

During that period, Beethoven wrote the music that would define his unique style, change music permanently and give him a legacy as one of the greatest composers of all time.  Entirely deaf, Beethoven wrote his best string quartets. It seems a mystery that Beethoven became more original and brilliant as a composer in inverse proportion to his ability to hear his own - or others - music. He was less influenced by the prevailing compositional fashions and more by the musical structures forming inside his own head. 

Have you lost something that defined your identity? How might this loss set you free? You might finally define yourself in new ways, free from the boundaries you set for yourself based on the expectations of others. As you age, what if you lean in to the 'declines' - really, just natural changes - and use your wisdom more? What if you turn your energy from impressing strangers to being completely present with the people you love? You might not revolutionize music, but maybe you will discover joy in the freedom that can come from losing something, but allowing yourself to grow.

It was probably a bad idea on my part to try to summarize this article during my second coffee of the day, watching the Will Ferrell Christmas classic Elf, in the midst of a pandemic on my sofa. If you came for the train pictures, you'll probably want to show yourself out at this point - (but I don't think you did, or will!) Here's how I 'heard' the above article by Mr. Brooks:

Beethoven died (cue the de-composer joke here) at the same age I am now. Coming up on two years retired, I know a lot of folks don't want to retire because they don't really know what to do with their time. (I think of Richard Scarry's classic book of my childhood, What Do People Do All Day?) Neither do I. Just like the pandemic, a major life change offers us the gift of a reset. Working is pretty mindless. Get up, go to work, save the world, come home. (Or, if you're female, get up, go to work, come home, save the world). You mean I have to actually figure out what to do each day now?? C'mon, you can do it!!

As author Brooks suggests, I've never felt terribly bounded by boundaries I set for myself. A lot of people say 'I don't care what other people think of me', and to a large extent, I really don't. Be yourself - everyone else is already taken. I remember going to a buskers' festival and hearing one busker use the same 'bit' as another busker just down the street. That told me they've been watching each other's schtick. Any artist should not do that - Beethoven definitely didn't, moreso after he lost his hearing. If we do, we merely imitate others. We pick up their schtick. We model other model railroaders' layouts. We replicate other bloggers' blogs. We should be Beethoven-like, using the music that resides in our imagination, and by choice, not by necessity as he had to. When I nominated 2020 as the year to Model & Railfan Local, little did I know just how local Local would become in March!

I'm tired of hearing how awful 2020 has been. There have been good things that happened to me this year. I gained a miraculous new grandson and a new son-in-law. My wife hasn't killed me yet despite our extended time together. I have endured the death of my remaining parent. I have a sibling who can't escape the U.S.A., largely due to questionable political rhetoric there. My other sibling continues to document and disseminate history for the masses. Life goes on. 

We fight against the negativity of the pandemic. My wife and I stayed safe. Our kids work in healthcare. Remember, they are not in the front line of an attack.. They are actually in the last line of defence. We continue to define ourselves in new ways. We continue to define our elves in new ways this Christmas (Christmask!) The season of Advent, Latin for 'coming' or 'arrival' gives us an annual opportunity to prepare ourselves and order our thoughts. Perhaps the pandemic, the advent of vaccines and the advent of getting back to 'normal' gives us an opportunity to prepare for that.

Blogging continues - it's always been distanced. I created my seventh book. Brooks writes that after conducting his Ninth Symphony, the deaf Beethoven had to be physically turned around to see, if not hear, the thunderous ovation. It's like that with writing. It is said that writers have a desperate need to be 'heard'. Sometimes we have to hear others to truly hear ourselves and be heard. For that reason, I'm grateful for Dave, Steve, Chris, George/Peter/Don, Bernard and Matthieu, whose blogs I read in my right sidebar. Bloggers Edd, Michael and John took some time off, and that was as wise as it was necessary. Believe it or not, there is more to life than blogging. What, did I just type that??

Thank you for reading this, for indulging me with your patience, your comments, your suggestions and the many additions you've made to my life this past year. Your attendance here is not mandatory, though it is valued and welcomed. 

Christmas is most decidedly NOT CANCELLED, any more than we can cancel sunrise, the weather, aging, trips to the bathroom, wanting to eat fruitcake all day (well, maybe that last one). If you feel like someone is trying to cancel your Christmas, just watch this video of the Stanley Park train ride. Buddy the Elf would be proud. The child in me screams 'Wow!' while the teenager in me says 'Cool' as the adult in me evaluates 'Wow factor' and the retiree in me thinks 'That is a lot of lights there. That would take a long time to string them all up. Where do they store them? That is a lot of trips back and forth to the garden shed'. Anyway, truly a winter wonderland!

Wishing you the merriest of Christmases, 

peaceful season's greetings, 

and a huge dose of hopefulness for 2021!

--Eric

Running extra...

My uncle from Portage la Prairie shared these photos of a westward-facing rail train in the CN yard there:

The Prairies are not known for mountains, but that pile of used ties is approaching mountain proportions!

Here are some of the Christmas greetings I've received this year:

The indomitable Alex Pallo Jr. (above)

Gary Hadfield (above) - Matapedia, QC in 2009 

****The inimitable Bob Fallowfield (above - Bill Miller photo) **** Steve Hoshel:

Lance Gleich by mail:

Two from M A P:

GCPRS's Jason Paul Sailer:

Rapido Trains Inc.

Fellow blogger Steve Boyko:

Fellow blogger Chris Mears:

New Year's Greetings from Ray Farand: