Grab an older map of Essex County, and in the area of Walker and Provincial, you will see a dot on the map named “Pelton”. There never was actually a community around the spot on the map, but there was a rail line junction with a control tower, more of a rail junction, there is still a bit of history behind it.
When Bernie was going through his slides, looking for riverfront photos for us, he found a bunch from Pelton that he pulled and had John scan as well.
A Google Earth view of the location of the Pelton Spur.
Photo © Bernie Drouillard
A crop shot of the Pelton tower. This photo was taken January 22, 1989, and at this point you can see the tower is boarded up and no longer in use. The Pelton tower along the Canada Southern Rail Line bit the dust November 29, 1991.
Photo © Bernie Drouillard
Photo Taken June 22, 1980
Photo © Bernie Drouillard
Photo Taken August 21, 1988
Photo © Bernie Drouillard
Photo Taken January 22, 1989
Photo © Bernie Drouillard
Photo Taken May 21, 1989
Photo © Bernie Drouillard
Photo Taken February 25, 1991
Here is a great photo of the Pelton tower. A big thank you to Geoff Elliott for the permission to repost his photos here.
A case of being in the right place, at the right time, Geoff was down at the Pelton spur in November, 1991, the day the tower came down.
Looks to me like the building eater, made very quick work of this old relic.
A few years ago, I paid a visit to Pelton to see if there was anything there. I noticed the Pelton name on the CN machinery boxes in the area.
I’m sure the area used to be much busier than it is today. Today, outlines can be seen where the rails used to run.
I believe that this is near where the tower stood.
A slab of rail laying around on site, reveals that it was forged by Algoma in the 1940’s (the last number is cut off)
A look up at one of the old telephone poles, also speaks volumes about how busy the corridor used to be. Look at all the insulators, each one would have carried a separate, power, phone or telegraph line..
An abandoned hut along the tracks, south of the 401 overpass.
I’m not sure what the site looks like now, since these photos were taken, they did some work on the gas lines in the area after these photos were taken, plus the 401 widening have been staging in there.
I willing to bet the remaining traces of the area, are probably now wiped out.
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There used to be a big artificial lake nearby created by the hole dug to build the 401 embankments adjacent. If I recall they were filling it in in the 1990s. Is it still there, or all gone?
It was on my psychogeographic map of Windsor as a kid because we were told stories (or just story?) of people occasionally drowning in it when they went swimming, getting entangled in the weeds that lurked below. The idea of such a place existing kept me awake at night, wondering what kind of person would swim in such an awful place.
Are there old photos of this? Bernie seems to have the productivity of a photoblogger, decades before such a person existed.
Sean, I remeber that lake, I fished in it probably going back over a decade ago…
Looking at google maps, it appears that it is almost all gone now. It was located at the west end of Del Duca Dr. in Oldcastle.
http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=del+duca+dr+oldcastle+on&sll=42.243332,-82.957388&sspn=0.004273,0.00824&ie=UTF8&ll=42.241735,-82.952378&spn=0.008546,0.016479&t=h&z=16
Looks like there's just a few small pockets of water there today. It was a very good sized pond, and when I would go there with a freind, there were almost always others there fishing too...
I remember that lake really well. It was excavated for the 401 construction and the overpasses at the Pelton Cloverleaf. My dad used to take me fishing there in the early 70s when I was 6 or 7. There was a spit that extended out into the middle and along it were fire pits and a lot of empty beer bottles where teenagers used to go to drink. I think it was a pretty out of the way place and nobody bothered them.
Hmm poking around Google Earth reveals the Pelton Cloverleaf has lost some clover, and there are abandoned stretches of road.
Thanks for posting the pictures. I have seen the photos from Mr Elliot before, as he is a friend of mine, but its nice to see some of these other pictures, and items that i have never seen before. Keep posting up other Transportation related items and buildings like this, I enjoy seeing these.
very cool pics! thanks andrew, john and bernie!
yup, looks like an abandoned on-ramp for the 401. if you go over to the intersection of anchor drive and twin oaks, you'll notice an abandoned stretch of lauzon road as well.
i'm really loving these railway series!
also....in the same area as lauzon, it looks like an abandoned spur line headed for the sub-station that's there.
hey guys......how did fish get in that lake? did any of you ever catch anything....or witness someone else catch something?
I don't see the spur line there. Though the area north of the tracks used to be the Twin Oaks golf course. After it closed, and before being bulldozed to oblivion, we played along the creek. There was a sort of damn that the golf course had built to create a small reservoir.
Note, if you're ever nearby on your bike or foot, there is a strange go-nowhere rec path -- but at the northwest corner of the industrial park there is a spur-path that goes underneath EC Row by Little River with back-door access to Forest Glad. Unless it has been fenced up, but I can still make out the path via google earth.
My father tells the story of running away from home in 1935 with two of his friends. They jump into a open boxcar and figure they are heading for the big time. They rattle around for quite some time, the train stops, they figure they must be half way to Buffalo. They get out of the boxcar, see the sign on this very tower that says Pelton. Wander around till they find someone. Most confounded when they find out they managed to get themselves just a long walk home to the 900 block of Lawrence Rd.