frigid winters could freeze solid even an entire tank of water. To prevent freezing, a protective wooden shell was built around the tanks. Inside the shell a stove and pump kept the water both moving and thawed during the winter. At some eastern Ontario stations the lower section of the shell was of local stone rather than wood.
While freight stations were seldom a dominant part of the station landscape in Canada, that of the CPR in Kingston, Ontario, was unusually elaborate. Illustration courtesy of Queen’s Archives.
A rod that pierced the roof of the tank rested on a floating ball and alerted maintenance crews to the level of the water inside. In the early days of Canada’s stations, before municipal water pipes were constructed and extended to the water tanks, windmills beside the tanks pumped the water from a well into the tank. In Avonlea, Saskatchewan, water had to be piped from a lake several kilometres away.
In the early days, coal was loaded from the coal pile onto the coal tenders by a bucket or scoop on the end of a swivel. This awkward process was replaced by the coal dock or tipple. A much more efficient system, the coal was stored in an overhead bin and when the tender was underneath, the operator would simply open the chute and fill the tender. During the 1920s these dark and dusty towers became an integral part of the station landscape, particularly at divisional stations. Avonlea foreman Jack Dalrymple tried to brighten his dusty coal tower by placing geraniums in the coal dock window.
The most visible and enduring element of the prairie station landscape was the grain elevator. Prairie grain, after all, was the reason why the railways were there in the first place. To avoid the distinctive aromatic unpleasantness of having a steady stream of horse-drawn wagons lining the towns’ streets, the elevator companies located their elevators opposite the station and the town. As grain traffic increased, however, the lines of wagons grew so long that they frequently blocked the tracks and disrupted train movement. In response, the railways made land available for elevators only on the same side of the tracks as the towns and stations, but at a considerable distance from the town centres.
TOP: The water tower in Barry’s Bay, Ontario, is Ontario’s only surviving wooden water tower and sits near the former Booth Line station. Photo by author. BOTTOM: The residents in the “ghost town” of Heinsburg, Alberta, have preserved their water tower and their station. Photo by author.
The late 1990s saw the beginning of the end of the prairie grain elevator. The shift to more modern roadside grain terminals led to the mass obliteration of these iconic trackside sentinels. Only where these have been modernized, or specifically preserved, do the prairie elevators yet stand tall. Elevators in places like Nanton and Acadia Valley in Alberta, Hepburn SA and Inglis MA have become grain elevator interpretation centres, Eastern Canada too could proclaim trackside grain elevators. However, when the grain industry moved west beginning in the 1880s, most were demolished. A few gained a new existence as feed mills. Some however have been saved for their heritage value, including those in Pontypool, Port Perry and Unionville, all in Ontario.
As pioneer farmers struggled to clear the trees, the saw mill became a common sight beside most stations. But once the forests were cleared, the saw mills closed. As farming became increasingly profitable, the railways began to move farm products to market, and grain elevators, more usually associated with the prairie landscape, became a common sight in Ontario and Quebec.
Stockyards too were a common element of the station’s immediate landscape. Towns often vied vigorously with each other for a stockyard at the station. Even where cattle were not raised locally, regulations required that, while en route to market, livestock had to be off-loaded at regular intervals for exercise.
In divisional towns the landscape around the stations were heavily dominated by railway structures. Beside the station — sometimes in them — a restaurant provided meals for passengers waiting for the engine to be serviced and for the crews to change shifts. Usually the restaurants were franchised out to private operators, although sometimes they were operated by the railways themselves. At any event they provided economy-minded travellers with a less expensive alternative to the more costly dining car.
Sorting yards, roundhouses, engine sheds, and coal tipples dominated the sprawling station grounds. Behind the station, bunkhouses, hotels, or occasionally YMCAs would house train crews awaiting their return shift.
Divisional towns were home to the railway crews. To attract good workers, preferably family men, the railways provided permanent housing. Styles were often reminiscent of the stations themselves. But in all cases the houses could be readily distinguished by their rigid rows and identical designs.
An 1890s view of the station and dining hall in Broadview, Saskatchewan. Most divisional stations had restaurants either beside them or in them, offering economy-minded passengers a less expensive, if hurried, alternative to the dining car. Photo courtesy of Saskatchewan Archives Board, R-A 18910-1.
Gardens
One of the most distinctive features of Canada’s station landscapes, and one of the least remembered, were the station gardens. The early stations, with their piles of cordwood and muddy grounds, were unkempt and ugly. To soften the unsightliness, the railways began to supply agents with flowers to add to their own vegetable gardens.
Long a practice of station agents in England, the station gardens first appeared in Canada along the Grand Trunk Railway between Toronto and Montreal and along the Ontario Simcoe and Lake Huron (later the Northern) Railway between Toronto and Collingwood. The man who started it all was Fred Cumberland. An engineer from England hired by the OH and S, Cumberland was meticulous in the running of the railway. It was he who insisted that his railway have the best station gardens, and many attribute to him the initial impetus for Canada’s station gardens. Bolstered by the unexpected popularity of the gardens, Cumberland hired a gardener at Couchiching Point to set up a permanent green house. In 1868, two of the more popular station gardens, those at Sunnidale and Stayner, cost $436 and $401 respectively.
A now-forgotten feature of the station landscape was the popular station garden, as seen in this extensive garden at Chelsea, Quebec. Photo courtesy of CPR Archives, 13469.
Collingwood and Allandale, however, were the most important points on the line, and Cumberland gave them the best gardens. Within two decades of the opening of the Northern Railway, Collingwood had become an important tourist destination. Passengers disembarked here to transfer to Georgian Bay steamers. While waiting for their connections they admired the large gardens or listened to the music from its bandshell. Allandale, an important divisional point on the Northern Railway, boasted a particularly large and attractive garden. Although the fountain and the flowers have gone, a bust of Cumberland still gazes soberly from what is now a neatly trimmed parkette.
If the Northern Railway was the first to establish station gardens, the CPR was the most ambitious. Like the Northern, the CPR had an economic motive for its gardens. One of Western Canada’s pre-eminent developers, the CPR wanted to attract settlers. Promotional literature that featured a photo of a lush station garden made an otherwise arid Canadian West look more fertile than was usually the case. David Hysop, a real estate agent and claims adjuster for the railway, urged, “If you want to show how good the soil is why not have gardens at the railway stations in which flowers and vegetables can
