As mentioned, we went to Hamilton to view the Steam Pumping Engine at the Water Works at that location.
On the return to Toranna we traveled the Water Level Route rather than the Skyway and crossed the Canal, the rails gone by then on the lift bridge.
Decades ago read a book on Hamilton Harbour which indicated that there were once TWO Bascule Bridges at the harbour entrance and that one had been destroyed by a ship, ’ W.E. Fitzgerald ’ in April 1952.
Interesting video of that surge through the canal. I read the notes, and apparantly the ships were “speeding,” that is, going three to five knots over the eight knot maximum. The US and Canadian Coast Guards are enforcing the speed limits now so the problem’s been solved.
I’m glad I read the notes. I was going to make a “Don’t buy a house next to an airport because it’s cheap and then complain about the noise!” type comment. Kept me from making a fool of myself.
As a perhaps interesting point for the alert reader, these surges can become virtually self-sustaining. See the early development of the math that became ‘solitons’, which was originated when a scientist first observed the phenomenon in a canal and followed it.
Flintlock/Wayne-- The Surveying teacher at our Mine School bought one of four $400,000 condos right on the lake. Very nice, fancy schmancy and all but immediately to their right is the long ago and well established Waterbase with scores of Twin Otters and other models coming and going from the crack of dawn until twilight and they are really noisy things. Ear splitting, take off and landing. Of course now he and his wife are complaining, and are so stressed that he bought land in far away New Brunswick in the middle of no where and building a house there. Will be leaving us upon completion. The water and sewer lines froze solid on all four of them this winter during that extended 2 month long -40 period this winter didn’t help either. Some kind of contractor screw up, what a mess.
Nice deck, if you can handle it! So what did they expect really? Peace and quiet with a water base airport, the busiest in all of Saskatchewan a couple of hundred feet away? He looks at my modest house backing onto solid forest all the way to Prince Albert with great envy.
I would view the surge as daily entertainment but to say damage is a stretch. Speeding Lake Freighters, geez. Ok, pull over pal!
Thanks to all for the information included in this thread. I grew up in Hamilton, and do remember much of what was there at one time.
The TH&B was literally right across the street from our front porch, on an elevated r-o-w, and I watched the steamers (and their replacements) from there.
The TH&B Berks and Hudsons certainly wouldn’t have gone into the STELCO blast furnaces, but were likely cut-up, at STELCO, down near the Bay, then went into the open hearth furnaces. A lot of American steam met its end there, too, including articulated locos and quite a few Berkshires - their tenders, cut-down and modifed, served long lives as slab carriers…there are photos to be found HERE.
I later worked at STELCO so am quite familair with operations there.
The tender from one of the TH&B Hudsons was converted into a steam generator car, and eventually ended-up at Steam Town.
The fruit industry is still flourishing in the Niagara peninsula, but there’s little left from Burlington, through Hamilton, and all the way out past Stoney Creek. Some survives in the Winona area, and through Grimsby (my current home) and all the way down to Niagara-On-The-Lake, although it’s under threat in various places from urban development.
I’m modelling the late '30s, in HO scale, and many of my industries are named for real ones which exist (or existed) in this area, so the links were a very-much-appreciated reminder of what was once here.
One reason of these Forums is to inforum others and pass on information, history and SKILLS from our lifetimes, when steam was disappearing along with so much else.
The Big Change came in 1960, when steam was gone for good, along with a great deal of passenger service.
I’m with you Overmod, I really don’t want to see steam locomotives lined up for the slaughter. if I want that I’ll pull out my copy of Ron Zeil’s “The Twilight of Steam Locomotives,” and I don’t even do that all too often.
I’d find it as disturbing as a film I saw several years ago of a pilot whale massacre in some Scandinavian country. Supposed to be a local festival. Really.
Well I would like to see those C&O steam locomotives in Hamilton as per the Star Weekly.
A very popular and eagerly awaited addition to many newspapers. Ours was the Hamilton Spectator. September to May every year they had a full length half page picture of a NHL hockey player dressed in their home colours. Along with a small bio and stats. Could not wait to see who was featured this week. If it was a Chicago Black Hawk it went on my wall. Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita, Glen Hall, Billy Hay, Pierre Pilot, Doug Mohns, Chico Maki… so good. No link available!
By the way, former media mogul Conrad Black, the founder of the National Post, revived it from the NP inaugural issue and a couple of years after that then the realities of newspaper finances hit hard.
doctorwayne-- could be an urban legend that they just rolled the TH&B Berkshires and Hudsons into the open furnaces… same story with the Algoma Central steam at Algoma Steel. Probably is. The TH&B scrapped their steam fast. Tenders removed moments after their last run ( pics of that) and then off quickly to the steel mills with the locomotive. This was the NYC influence on the TH&B.
Local railfans raved and still do about the TH&B Geeps, but not me ever. Paint scheme never held up well and besides who cares. Passenger declined to nothing, the magic was gone and that was that.
And you know, no-one’s saying that ALL the steam locomotives should have been preserved, (As much as we’d secretly wish it!), that would have been totally unrealistic and impractical.
It’s the wholesale slaughter, especially of certain historic and landmark types, that has us so PO’d.
OK, business is business, and assuming most of us here are capitalists we more than understand that, but still, what a loss.
Not quite on the order of building condos or strip malls on a Civil War battlefield, but close.
A head scratcher… why would American steam locomotives be scrapped in Canada? Must be something economic about it but enough so to overcome transportation and border holdups… probably brokerage and paperwork?
No capiche.
It is possible the C&O locomotives came from St. Thomas or Sarnia refineries so already based in Canada but articulated locomotives?
