Up today is a panoramic photo of the Windsor Waterfront, from 1939. At the left is the old Station, to the right are the tracks…
Here’s a close up of the old CN station…
As always there are always some interesting details in these old photos…. Looks like some repairs are being made to the tracks.
Note the planking to cross the tracks… Also interesting to note the D.T. & I. railroad car. That railway was owned by Henry Ford from 1920 – 1929, and at one time the stretch from Detroit to Toledo was electrified.
While the electrified line failed, to this day, some of the arches that carried the power lines are still standing, this shot above is just off of I-94 in Allen Park, MI.
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How far we haven’t come since then. Considering that in the early 20th century almost half of the cars were electrics and even trains. Now where are we? Less than a quarter are electric and we have electric/diesel hybrid trains.
Hopefully we continue down this path and say good-bye to oil companies.
Railway stations always seem to have such beautiful lines and were built on a human scale. I’m sorry so many are gone now. And that’s an interesting bit about Henry Ford. Great photos, great post. Thanks, Andrew.
nice!
thanks Andrew!
Would love to see a higher resolution version of that main photo.
i’ve got something similar but from the west side of the station. same kinda fisheye lens thing….probably the same photographer, same date i would imagine.
do you want me to send it to you if i can find it?
Aaron, I’d love to see the picture if you can find it. I’m trying to find any pictures showing the old trackage of Windsor. Especially anything for the track that used to be behind Wellington Ave. went to the river, supplying several businesses, including the old Post Cereal and a lumber yard at the end of Carmon, west of the tunnel. 🙂
let me see what i got Jeff.I’m looking for some of that myself lol 🙂
Got an e-mail you’re willing to throw out? I would but I only have the net at work, and I can’t let it out on the net.
Yep, georgeofthejungle@cogeco.ca Thanks!
The trackage shown by I-94 was originaly the Dertoit, Toledo, & Ironton railway. Henry Ford bought it in the early twenties when he was building the Rouge Plant.The railroad said they could not aford to rebiulled theirr bridge at the Rouge River, to avoid delay for his plant he bought the railroad. In 1929 he sold it to a subsity of the Pensylvania Railroad, It is now part of Canadian National.
Mybe in its history the railroad suffered bankrupcies but not under Ford ownership.I think Ford may have been responsible fore electifying the line, not sure of that.
Incredible shots, and I recall the old Windsor station very well, ’til everything was shifted to the Walkerville station. But, on a scandalous, but historic note, this area and for about 8 or 10 blocks eastward on the embankment of Riverside Dr. East, (and the tracks, roundhouse, turntable, etc.) was the scene in 1947 or so, of Windsor’s serial killer, dubbed “The Slasher”. It was covered in detail in some issues of The Walkerville Times a few years ago.
there used to be a long siding that ran almost to riverside drive to the windsor stars warehouse where they got carloads of newsprint
My Grandfather John (Jack)G.Gibson was terminal Trainmaster here until 1943 for the CNR having come as yardmaster in 1920. These photos in 1939 were taken the same year as the Royal Visit of 1939 June when the royal train came to Windsor with King George the VI and Queen Elizabeth and a great welcome was made at the station and CNR yards. Bands, military, civic dignitaries etc. Somewhere I have some of the paperwork countersigned by my grandfather to allow access to the reserved seating.
I don’t know if anyone has noticed but the last remaining train tracks that were on the riverfront are now gone. The tracks that ran across Riverside and into Hiram Walkers were taken out.
Is that old train station, the same one that still stands, or what that built as a replica?
Not the original sadly Uzzy.
This train station once stood at the foot of Goyeau… just about where CN5588 now stands.
^^^ also, the stairs leading down from Riverside Drive to the Spirit of Windsor are the stairs that led to the Station. The structure that many people think is the station, I believe is actually an original workshop. I’m not positive about that though.
The last remaining railroad building along Riverside Drive was a tool shed, it was near the turntable, and roundhouse. After the tracks where removed the city converted it to washrooms and added the ornate trim.
The old station, built by the Grand Trunk Railway in 1884, was designed by Sir Joseph Hobson, chief engineer of the GTR. He also designed and built similar mansard-roofed stations in Chatham and Sarnia, these still standing as of 2015. Hobson also designed and built the original Grand Trunk railway tunnel under the St. Clair River from Sarnia to Port Huron. The Windsor station stood here until it was demolished in 1961, its place marked by the “Spirit of Windsor” (ex-GTR #213, then CNR #5588 after 1923). There were seven storage tracks to the east (right of the station in the photo), each of them housing cabooses of the Canadian National and Wabash Railways. Behind, you can see a car float of the Wabash Railway which regularly carried freight cars across the Detroit River. Further in the background are some of the large and luxurious passenger boats that cruised the Great Lakes and on overnight voyages from Detroit to Buffalo.