Along the CPR Elora subdivision—For many years the biggest industry had been the Beatty Bros. (washing machines) plant which was built 1912 in Fergus (Pop. 6,000), which also had access to the CNR. Little else was located along the line other than typical rural freight of farm country. Note: By 1929 Beatty’s was the largest manufacturer of washing machines in Canada out selling all other manufacturers combined! By this time they had 500 employees at the plant which the brothers had continued to expand rather than leave Fergus for Hamilton or Toronto.
This is a staged publicity shot at the Fergus Station right by the factory spur, from 1931.
It took many months of manufacture to come up with ‘a full train load’ for the postcard shot. What Beatty would do is store boxcars full of appliances on side spurs until photo day.
"On the morning of August 31 1931, a locomotive with 6 CPR officials and a staff photographer in a business car arrived early in the morning. The
Thanks Jones… Love how those 2 pictures show the doubling of the motive power after the initial embarassement os stalling when using only one. Last ‘photo train’ was 1956, that after a long lapse, but still steam powered.
That is still a beautiful area, rural and Mennonite country with their horse and buggies.
Rails lasted well over a hundred years. I can imagine the tales and stories. Zero left.
Line opened Dec 1879, granted abondonment Dec 1987.
The turntable remained serviceable but little used like everything else including the tracks themselves
since trains seldom ventured beyond Fergus in the last years of the Elora Sub. July 1962 R.L.Kennedy
Now I’m fighting the urge to get Brown Bess down from over the fireplace and assault some enemy position! [li]
Bayonet’s already fixed, so I don’t have to bother looking for it!
PS: I watched the video of the Beatty washing machine. How old is it? 80, 90, maybe 100 years old? And it still works! No “planned obsolesence” there! They sure built 'em good!
Easy Flintlock… I know the pipes can be stirring, international in scope, knows no boundaries! Even way up here we get piped onto the ice for the playoffs in curling. It’s quite enthralling
The original picture begs the question, How about all the manufacturing we have lost in small and mid size towns and cities? All that independence and pride, jobs and skills, replaced by what? … welfare cheques and drugs. We used to make things here, same in the USA, I suppose we still make a few things. $1,000 trendy parkas come to mind. We just managed to cheese off the Chinese market though and the flagship store in Beijing is stillborn.
The myriad of rail north of London, Ont up to Lake Huron was astounding, criss crossing everywhere. It is all gone, 100%, all of it. It was a bastion of steam right up to the end in 1959-60. At least they had that. With the Diesels the rails just faded away, as did all the manufacturing.
A familiar story I guess. Oh well we still have the pipes and those caber tossers are really something.
Yes Vince, we still have the pipes, and the pipes remember, especially when they’re in capable hands. Maybe Brown Bess remembers, but if she does she doesn’t say very much.
It took a genius like Rudyard Kipling to make her “speak.”
Bagpipes play an important role in my childhood memories. When my parent took me to the British army or navy base or watching the police marching, I always feel excited when I hear the sound of pipes.
There is no doubt the widespread loss of manufacturing in small and mid size towns goes hand in hand with the loss of branch lines. Perhaps they would have gone to trucks anyway even if they were not wiped out. Societal change on a massive scale, the consequences of which we are dealing with now.
I don’t believe that all those folks in the pictures were fools or backwards. They had paradise, we lost it, hidden behind twisted rationization, maybe something folks are waking up to. That’s a big discussion for a different kind of Forum.
Beatty made irons and ironing boards in addition to washing machines. Do young people iron anything? Is our generation the last? Suppose you don’t have to iron sweat pants and hoodies, blue jeans and t shirts.
With the loss of the Beatty plant the Elora subdivision went down to less than 2 cars a month. Gone, and soon totally forgotten.
As manufacturing progressed from the early 20th Century through WW II and into the 21 Century of today - to be profitable the manufacturing had to be done on a scale that was far beyond anything that could be accomplished with ‘mom & pop’ manufacturers such as Beatty - thousands of similar companies on both sides of the border were done in by the march of financial efficiency…some of those that went under were names that were recognized worldwide…never to be.
Thanks Balt-- Full well expected a response like that. That is the ultimate failing of capitalism and it’s wrong. I think you are starting to see the results today. Accelerated by those who wish to keep it all in their favour. If in the end it comes down to 5 individuals owning the bulk of wealth and the means of control and production, along with their smallish circles of minions and the rest of us simply ’ a keep’ barely struggling by and burdened by debts then what do you have? It already exists with the control of what you see and are told on the internet by maybe 4 individuals.
You said it Miningman! That’s the reason I support my local hobby shop. Sure, I could probably buy the O gauge trains I enjoy a lot cheaper on line, but I’m keeping a local small business alive by doing otherwise, even though it costs me a few bucks more. It’s worth it.
Support your local small businesses folks, as much as you can. Once places like “Pops Hardware”, “Harrys Drug Store”, “Joes Appliances”, “Big Bills Burgers”, or “Moms Ice Cream” are gone, no power on Earth will bring them back.
You said it Miningman! That’s the reason I support my local hobby shop and other local businesses. Sure, I could probably buy the O gauge trains I enjoy a lot cheaper on line, but I’m keeping a local small business alive by doing otherwise, even though it costs me a few bucks more. It’s worth it, at least to me.
Support your local small businesses folks, as much as you can. Once places like “Pops Hardware”, “Harrys Drug Store”, “Joes Appliances”, “Big Bills Burgers”, or “Moms Ice Cream” are gone, no power on Earth will bring them back.
The Beatty washing machine–it was quite a help to the housewife. My mother had a Kenmore washer, which looked much the same. I do not know just what year she bought it, but I do remember it from about 1939-40 on, and I know she coniinued to use it into the early seventies.
I hope the Beatty had a feature on the wringer that the Kenmore had–a bar on the wringer that, when pushed, released the pressure of the rollers so that if your arm should be caught (as one of my brothers let his be caught) you could stop the rollers from pulling you through the wringer.
Several times I filled the washer, using a bucket–and let the water out through the drain at the bottom. Once, when I was quite young, my brother (not much older than I) let the used water come out on me–I was unhappy, and our mother then let the water come out on my brother.
As time has moved on so has the size of ‘Mom & Pop’ operations. The corner stores have been replaced by gas station/convience stores owned for the most part by ‘Big Oil’. The center city ‘Department Stores’ for the most part all failed during the 20th Century (in Baltimore there were Hutzlers, Hochild Kohn and Stewarts - all gone). And today we are watching the end of Sears play out, with Montgomery Wards having already been gone for decades.
Yes we all know that. That certainly does not make it right. It’s getting far too concentrated with the wealth and the power. Then those with it all will start to tell you how to think. That’s already in play.
When the railroads become giant unmanned automated conveyor belts with PSR, PTC and more and more advanced computer control get back to me and tell more how wonderful it is.
There is a societal cost to lack of competition and variety, massive unemployment and serious concentration of wealth and assets. It is dangerous not efficient.
It isn’t so much the lack of competition - but the costs of competing. High Tech costs money, how High Tech are you required to be to remain competitive.
A hundred years or so ago industry was controlled by Rochefeller, Carnegie, Morgan, and a few others, yet the branchlines were in their hayday. In my small town in Northern Michigan we have over a dozen small manufactures, mostly jobbing for the auto companies. Little comes in for them by rail. Coke for a foundry, lumber for a roof truss builder, propane for whoever. I don’t think any ship out by rail. Almost all of what goes out is sand for foundries. It seem every small midwest town with a few hundred people has an industrial park. Trucks killed branchlines. I don’t see any correlation with the ebb and flow of business consolidation.
Our small town was home to Acme Trucks, Kysor industries, and other large manufactures. The Shay engine was invented in our town, but manufacture was soon farmed out to Lima. All those are gone, but have been replaced by others. The railroad goes on. Change is inevitable, the important thing is how you respond.
