This photo is a bit of mystery. I’ve asked around amongst those who know far more about both the county and about train, and no one has any insight about this.(I didn’t check in with “Rob” a regular reader and rail expert, so hopefully he’ll weigh in here.)
There is a possibility after talking with Bernie Drouillad, noted transit historian, that it may have had somthing to do with the S.W.&A line to Amherstburg, rather than with the railroad. He noted the white stripe painted on the pole might have designated a stop, and it also appears that there is a sign tacked on the pole as well.
Maybe someone out there can come up with some info?
Have a good weekend everyone, see you back here Monday.
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Upon showing this to a guy steeped in history of the CASO, he says it is not a CASO photo. Therefore quite likely the SW&A.
Well this could be also for the Essex Terminal as well. The Section Tool house, which is meant for Motor Cars and small maintenance area (which is ment for an 10 mile area normally). This could be also on SW&A, but I don’t remember ever hearing the SW&A having any Motor Cars, which you can see the 2 boards leading up to the tracks, which is used for Motor car wheels.
THE DETROIT RIVER LOOKS LIKE IT’S IN THE BACKGROUND?…NO?
No.
I think this is an SW&A photo.
If I’m seeing what I think I’m seeing, in the bottom left of the shot, I can see the shadow of a streetcar, and it’s tolley pole touching the overhead wires.
If this is the case, then yes, that is the Detroit River in the background. There’s also a lot of black smoke in the background, which I suspect is from a freighter.
I’m also going out on a limb here…..it’s a long shot, but if this is a stop, like Bernie suggests, I would say it’s either a stop called “Texas Landing”, which would be at Texas rd, or a stop north of it called “Sanscrainte”….if I’m reading my map right. I think this stop would have been near the Wyandotte cemetery. I say that because there were/are Sanscrainte’s in Amherstburg, and back at the turn of the century there was a Charles Sanscrainte who had a child that was born/died in A’Burg in 1903. Charles’ father was John Baptist Sanscrainte, who I beleive was a native interpreture in the region, in the later 1800’s. Anyways….maybe they had some land here in this area, and that’s where the stops name came from?
Do those leaning items in the background on the right look like they could be headstones? Maybe the ones that are laying flat now in the cemetery?
Aron i don’t think those stones in the background on the right of the photo are grave stones i can’t imagine anyone burying some one that close to the track could that maybe be a mileage markers??? is this part of the old street car line that ran thru the county i remember my mother saying a line ran out to essex and pehaps further i think that was incorporated into CASO maybe
…..after filtering the photo to increase its brightness, I see that it is a trolley pole on the line overhead. The leaning objects on the right of the photo look like broken fenceposts or some other such. Might that trolley pole be on a rail grinding car? The shadow is the same as the old grinding cars that the TTC have up here in TO. That would explain the buildings purpose to maybe store rail grinding sand etc for the car?!?
Gary, there were two streetcar lines that ran out into the county. This one would have been the Sandwich, Windsor & Amherstburg Railway. They did their routes in the city, and a line followed Front Road all the way out to Amherstburg to Richmond Street in the middle of town.
The other was the Windsor, Essex & Lakeshore. They did a little running in the city, mostly straight up Howard to the Michigan Central roundhouse (Roundhouse Center today). There you boarded the interurban which ran on the north side of the MCR tracks(CASO)on it’s own ROW to Maidstone where it’s street running started. It then ran down Talbot Road, thru Essex to the intersection of Talbot and Division. If you look on Google maps at that intersection, there’s a straight line cutting the corner, I think that’s the ROW. It ran down Division to Kingsville, running on Main Street. Part of the line jutted off down Lansdowne to Park Ln to their Powerhouse (which still exists) and Carbarns (demolished)at Park Ln and Lakeview Ave.
It trvelled down Main St/Seacliff to Union, up Union Road to Ruthven and east down Talbot again. I’m not sure, but I think at Albuna Townline it left the road and cut across feilds, and straightened out behind where Cardnal Cartier H.S./ Ellison Ave is now. Running along the bottom of the cemetery to Erie. It went up Erie, serviced the Heinz Plant, crossed the old C&O line and stopped just short of Talbot Road where there was a waiting room for the streetcar…..then it headed back.
It looks like the kind of building that was used to house “hand cars” or later the tiny two seat, single cylinder worker vehicles that rode the rails to transport workers down the line to make repairs.
The C&O ran across the north of Leamington by the fairgrounds, the New York Central crossed Erie st.north of Heinz, and south of Oak st.
That’s right, thanks Richard.
I think that Vince is right. It probably was a service type shed for hand cars for workers. Look at the pathway in front of the shed doors, they are wide-tracked on the outside which would explain that whatever they retreived from the shed would be a wider bodied “vehicle”. Also the pathway leads directly onto a paved-like surface that they can turn the hand cars around to be put onto the tracks.
The painting on the telephone pole would have the stop number as all stops had a number assigned to them even when they had a name. I have a list of all the stops on the Amherstburg and Tecumseh lines. From the shadow the car was heading to Amherstburg, also that pole is close to the track as is the shed, I don’t think it would be that close if this track belong to a railroad.
A friend passes this along for consideration:
“As to the comment concerning why the SW&A would have motorcars, it must be remembered that the branch was 15 miles of rail infrastructure not much different from a steam railway and would require similar maintenance.”
I don’t mean to be one of those fastidious types, but it should be “Amherstburg” in the title.
Aaron thanks for the information my mother never knew the name of the line other than it was there i think it cost 10 cents to ride the entire length of the line by the way love! those railroad friday photos more photos of the old Pere marquette/C&O would be appreciated