Harry Taylor Collection, photo by Walter Taylor
Today’s photo comes to up via county train historian Tim Swaddling. Tim says the photo is from Harry Taylor’s collection. The photo was taken by Harry’s father, Walter Taylor. The exact date is unknown, but it would likely be late 1930’s / early 1940’s.
The scene is looking northwest towards the river up the CNR / Great Western line. The Peabody Bridge can be seen in the distance. The tail end of the CN passenger train is sitting on Walker Road. The boxcars behind the steam loco are lined up against a building (maybe a Hiram Walker loading dock?), this is where the current and soon to be retired VIA Walkerville / Windsor depot is today. Behind the train is the little CNR station (I believe – I’m sure this might come up in the discussions afterwards), which was rarely ever photographed and not in use for very long.
The little CNR station is news to me, does anyone know anything about this station? This isn’t/wasn’t Walkerville Junction was it?
Harry Taylor Collection, photo by Walter Taylor
A detail crop of the Peabody Bridge and Walkerville Power Building.
Harry Taylor Collection, photo by Walter Taylor
A nice shot of 5570, I like the guy hanging out the window, posing for the photo 🙂
Harry Taylor Collection, photo by Walter Taylor
Looking at the fire insurance map, it looks like this building was part of Parke Davis.
Anyone out there have any extra input to share? I can always count on Rail Fans to fill in some blanks.
Very nice picture. I recall reading somewhere that CN did have a freight depot/station in that area.
CN mail car on a track near the Walkerville Post Office, this was stil in use until 1962 or63 at least. You could drop your mail by 4 or 5pm and be delivered in Toronto next day, now they truck it and three days to a week for delivery,Progess?
friend of mine, her father in law was postmaster and sorted mail on the train which meant really fast delivery, thing of the past for sure.
NO this wouldn’t be Walkerville junction thats located where the C&O/PM crossed the canadian pacific just south of grand marias rd
Andrew i came across some old photos of the C&O station from the late 40’s early 50’s they have a couple photos of the walker road rail crossing looking to the west next to where that tower was on walker Rd it it looks like there were houses on the west side of walker rd between the tracks and riverside drive do you have any knowledge of this??
Gary,
Here’s the area in the 1937 fire map it shows two sets of houses.
I don’t know anything about them though, and can’t say I’ve ever seen photos of them…
This is not relavent to the picture but shows that even railroad employes where some time confused. In the mid sixties my freind in London wanted to buy a ticket at CN to Windsor he was told the train DID NOT go to Windsor, Walkerville was the end of the line.
Well informed employes are a great help.
Andrew the name of the site that i found the walker Rd crossing photos on is called Southwestern ontario Digital Archives, i was looking for photos of the old PM walkerville station i typed in pere marquette walkerville ontario train station and thats what came up there are 2 photos of the walker road grade crossing during heavy snow falls one has a CN train maybe a passenger and one is just the crossing unocupied you can see houses on the west side of walker road along with the elevated tower and as in todays IM photo that line going above the tracks and what someone called the Park Davis building lots of interesting old photos about Walkerville in the early days check it out i think you’ll enjoy it
re: CNR passenger/freight station Walkerville http://blogs.windsorstar.com/2011/10/05/from-the-vault-rail-station
Isn’t that the Peabody Bridge in the distance??