1857 the Canadian board was gradually superseded by the English board and responsible, practical men in Canada were left to manage day-to-day operations.
By the end of 1856 locomotive and rolling stock numbers had increased to eight-six and 1,786 units, respectively. At this time, the company began planning and construction of a car works in Hamilton in which the company would build its own freight and passenger cars. There was also interest in the Detroit and Milwaukee Railway and the Great Western loaned £150,000 ($731,000 U.S.) to this line to assist in its completion across the lower peninsula of Michigan (Detroit to Grand Haven on Lake Michigan; see chapters 3 and 5).
In 1858 the company erected grain elevators in Hamilton and Sarnia, as well as a viaduct at St. Catharines and a steam hammer at the Hamilton Car Works. The Hamilton grain elevator was supported by forty-foot pilings underneath the stone foundation. It was one hundred feet tall with a capacity of 125,000 bushels. Water depth at the wharf was fourteen feet. A siding entered the building, which had three elevator machines. Three cars could be unloaded at the same time. Ships could be loaded directly from the elevator at dockside.
The first Toronto Union Station was erected in 1858 by the Grand Trunk, fifty feet west of Bay Street along Front Street. A small frame building, it housed two waiting rooms, a lunch room, a barber shop, a ticket office, a baggage room, and a telegraph office. The Great Western and Northern railways joined the Grand Trunk in joint use of this station on June 21, 1858.
Disaster struck again when the Chatham depot burned down on the night of Monday, November 15, 1858.
January 18, 1859, marked the opening of the Komoka-Sarnia line. A special excursion train left Sarnia at 0730 hours on a miserable cold and rainy day carrying about 250 passengers. It arrived in the “Forest City” (London) at 1130 hours. During the festivities in London, Great Western directors left in an official train travelling from London to Sarnia. Departing at 1400 hours and arriving in Sarnia at 1700 hours, Sarnia Mayor Henry Glass and a number of town councillors welcomed the directors at McAvoy’s Hotel. Customary speeches and toasts followed. The depot was located at the foot of Cromwell Street. The Grand Trunk reached Sarnia in 1859 and erected an opulent depot. Traffic between the two depots mandated an easy means of transportation for customers and their baggage. Omnibuses fulfilled the need initially but, by 1875, a horse-powered street railway (Sarnia Street Railway Company) began operations between the depots. Its two cars were named Sarnia and Huron.
At the time of construction of the Great Western, a large wooden trestle had been erected over Twelve Mile Creek north of St. Catharines. Together with its approach tracks, it resembled a large letter S in the middle of a very straight line of track. In March 1859 this obstacle was
Photograph of the London Great Western station, date unknown.
Library and Archives Canada, C-053563.
removed by the erection of a new tubular bridge of riveted wrought iron at a new crossing a little downstream from the old trestlework. This resulted in a straightening of the east-west line. Heavy masonry abutments supported the cast-iron tubular beams at a span of about 184 feet. Trains passed over the bridge starting on March 18, 1859.
Residents of Windsor were aroused from their slumber during the early morning hours on April 25, 1859, by the shrill whistles of a fire alarm. An inferno was raging in the repair shop and other buildings of the Great Western along the shore of the Detroit River. Firemen from Detroit came to the aid of their sister city using the ferry steamer Windsor. The fire quickly consumed the repair shop, which was located about a quarter mile east of the depot, including its valuable supply of tools and machinery and four locomotives: #72 Medea (2-2-2), #73 Medusa (2-2-2), #79 Erebus (0-6-0), and an unidentified locomotive built by Norris. The blacksmith shop and a
View of Windsor Great Western yard in the 1870s, facing west. Note dual-gauge track. On the left is Sandwich Street (Riverside Drive today) and the tallest building (top left) is the old city hall between Windsor Avenue and McDougall Street.
Southwestern Ontario Digital Archive, University of Windsor.
View of Windsor Great Western yard, facing east. Various sheds (likely freight) and numerous examples of rolling stock can be seen. The many sheds were probably necessitated by the need to break bulk with the change in gauge at this terminal, until the third rail was installed so that standard gauge railcars could be interchanged. Note the two early cabooses near the centre of the image.
Windsor Community Museum.
five-hundred-foot-long woodpile were soon consumed as well. Firemen were able to contain the blaze, protecting the roundhouse farther to the east. The cause of the fire was unknown, although some believed that it was the result of arson.
The year 1859 was a gloomy one for all railways, as the depression continued and a rate war was initiated by American railroads. Table 2-3 illustrates a summary of the Great Western public timetable of 1859, including the main line and three branches (Guelph, Sarnia, and Toronto). In 1860 large payments were still being made as a consequence of the Desjardins Canal and Flamborough accidents (see chapter 6). No dividend was paid. Table 2-4 provides a summary of Great Western operations and financial data for 1860. The average annual dividend paid to shareholders during the previous seven years had been 4.75 percent. In spite of this, the affairs of the company were not satisfactory to a large proportion of the shareholders and a committee of investigation was appointed. Further gloom was caused by the fact that passenger travel was severely depressed and that the cost of re-rolling damaged iron rails to allow them to be reused was very expensive (£6 per ton in Canada versus £3 per ton in England). The railway would react to these latter findings, although its response would be delayed until 1864.
Great Western Detroit ticket office in 1859, located at the corner of Third and Woodbridge.
Burton Collection, Detroit Public Library.
The year 1860 saw a “bountiful harvest” and continued development of the first Canadian Oil Patch, discovered in 1858 in the area between the main line and the Sarnia branch around Petrolia. Conveyance of petroleum products in tank cars would become quite important to the company. Actually, a group led by John Henry Fairbank commissioned the building of the Petrolia–Wyoming spur line, which was taken over by the Great Western at a cost of approximately £10,000 ($48,700). Mr. Fairbank also donated the land upon which the Petrolia station was erected. This line was fully open for business in November 1867. London business interests apparently influenced the Great Western to charge more to ship refined oil than crude oil, thus encouraging shipment of crude oil to east London refineries at the expense of Petrolia refineries. Traffic receipts for the first six months were almost £9,000 ($44,000 U.S.) and for the first four years were nearly £30,000 ($146,000). Complaints about unfair freight rates continued until 1877 when the Canada Southern built a spur line into Petrolia, thus ending the Great Western monopoly. Mr. Fairbank was instrumental in this latter action as well.
Great Western Petrolia depot sometime between 1875 and 1898.
Glenbow Museum.
March 22, 1860, witnessed the opening of the new Desjardins Canal Swing Bridge. It had been tested the day before with the two heaviest locomotives on the roster: Titan
