Toronto's Victorian Railway Stations
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Toronto’s Victorian Railway Stations 1853-1900 By Derek Boles Toronto’s second Union Station, with its trio of Italianate towers, opened in 1873; an 1890s expansion added the Romanesque head house, tower, and office annex visible at far right, along with the second train shed at far left, in this northwest-facing circa-1908 view. Detroit Photographic Co., Library of Congress Collection 20 Fall-Winter 2010 n October 15, 1851, a gala celebration was held in O Toronto on the south side of Front Street between Simcoe and John streets. Schoolchildren were given the day off and 20,000 people, two-thirds of the city’s population, turned out to enjoy a grand parade through the streets that featured 46 marching groups and floats. That night, the festivities culminated in a ball at St. Lawrence Hall attended by the Prime Minister of Canada West1 and 400 guests. The patroness of the ball was internationally famed soprano Jenny Lind, the “Swedish Nightingale,” who performed in a concert arranged by American promoter P.T. Barnum. RAILROAD HISTORY 21 he occasion for organized in the ’40s, and T this community built in the ’50s.” 3 As a revelry was the turning formalized structure and of the first sod for the architectural statement, Ontario, Simcoe & Huron the station took time to Railroad, the first steam evolve; its purpose was railway in Canada West. to provide an office to Lifting the ceremonial sell tickets to customers silver spade was the and to furnish them with a Countess of Elgin, the place to wait and to board wife of the Earl of Elgin, their trains. Railways saw the governor-general of little point in spending Canada, who hovered money on elaborate nearby. After Lady structures, and so early On October 15, 1851, the sod turning for the Ontario, Simcoe & Huron, the Elgin used her dainty first common-carrier steam railway to operate in Ontario, was held on the stations were little more shovel to lift the square south side of Toronto’s Front Street, between Simcoe and John streets. than simple wooden Gleason’s Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion, January 24, 1852 of sod, it was deposited sheds. The Toronto Globe into an equally dainty The pattern of railway development in Toronto was influenced by the city’s described the first Great topography. All of the passenger stations described in this narrative were wooden wheelbarrow confined to a relatively narrow strip along the waterfront between Dufferin Western Railway stations and carted away by the Street to the west and the Don River to the east. Author’s Collection as “small and shabbily mayor of Toronto, who fitted up,” and the Toronto was resplendent in knee Colonist called them breeches, white stockings, “miserable shanties.” and ceremonial sword. One impediment to Following the ceremony, improvement was that the sod was preserved for they were a completely posterity by a young civil new form of building engineer named Sandford design, for which no Fleming, who would play precedents existed to a principal role in building provide architectural the new railway and later inspiration. advance to glory as one of None of the Canada’s most illustrious preceding modes of engineers, inventors, and public transportation scientists. had developed special Canada had long been separated by what has been buildings for the use of passengers. Steamship lines sold characterized as the “tyranny of isolation and distance.”2 tickets at downtown offices and on the wharves just before Canadians depended on road and water transportation sailing time. Stagecoach operators rented space in taverns, for personal travel and the movement of goods. Because hotels, stores, even private homes – whatever structures roads were usually dreadful and waterways were frozen were conveniently located and available. Passengers for several months a year, a more efficient form of boarded their coaches on the side of the road, much as transportation was urgently needed. Torontonians eagerly local bus riders do today. In the early years of railway anticipated the delights of rail transportation, which development in the United States during the 1830s, stations promised year-round travel and the timely delivery of were little more than ticket booths, but by the time the essential commodities, advantages that were only fantasies railway era began in Toronto, they had evolved into more before the age of rail. formal structures. The railway era was late in coming to Toronto. In 1834, Railways discovered that they could encourage travel the year the city had been incorporated with a population and generate additional revenue by providing auxiliary of 9,000, a group of businessmen met to discuss building services. These included the handling of checked baggage a railway, but the project was delayed for several years by by porters, sending telegrams, arranging for transportation political turmoil, a rebellion, and a lack of investment capital. on other connecting railways and steamship lines, and Meanwhile, the first railway line in Canada had opened in shipping express parcels. 1836 near Montreal. The long gestation period for Ontario First-class passengers who were willing to pay for railways was later characterized as “suggested in the ’30s, luxurious parlor, dining, and sleeping cars also required 22 Fall-Winter 2010 more agreeable amenities in the stations before they As was so often the case in the dawn of railway travel, boarded their trains. These included larger, more OS&H did not build its passenger station where the host comfortable, and heated waiting rooms, clean and ample community wanted it. The city offered the railway a plot of toilet facilities, separate accommodations for unescorted land on the south side of Front Street between Church and women and children, and overhead roofs to protect Jarvis Street that had been burned over in 1849. Instead, them from inclement weather while they were out on OS&H built Toronto’s first station southwest of Bay and the platforms. In cities like Toronto that attracted large Front streets opposite the Queen’s Hotel, near what is now numbers of tourists and business travelers, information the eastern entrance to present-day (1927) Union Station. counters were set up to dispense promotional literature Contemporary newspaper accounts describe the structure and to guide newcomers to local as a rudimentary shed housing a hotels and attractions. As passengers ticket office that was apparently still could often find themselves spending under construction when the line hours waiting for a connecting or late opened, since the conductor had train, they wanted to buy food and to sell tickets on the platform and beverages, to purchase books and aboard the train. magazines, and to obtain a haircut On May 16, 1853, the first or a shoeshine. Stations increased in Ontario, Simcoe & Huron passenger size to accommodate these new and train steamed out of Toronto bound profitable services. for Aurora, 30 miles to the north. In the century and a half since Like all of Ontario’s railways in that steam railways began operating period, OS&H was built to the 5-foot, in Ontario, approximately 100 six-inch track gauge established by passenger stations have stood within In 1953 this bronze plaque was affixed to a the colonial government. The right- column at the entrance to Toronto Union Station what is now the city of Toronto. to commemmorate the 100th anniversary of the of-way entered the city on the south This narrative will focus on railway first departure from Toronto’s (and Ontario’s) first side of Front Street, along the top passenger-train station. Author’s photo stations located along the Lake of an embankment that marked the Ontario waterfront that were built between 1853 and original shoreline of Lake Ontario. 1896 in a narrow geographical strip bounded by Strachan The second railway to enter Toronto was the Grand Avenue in the west and the Don River in the east. In the Trunk. Unlike OS&H with its modest aspirations to 19th century, a dozen different railway companies entered serve as a shortcut for shipping across the Great Lakes, Toronto and among them, they built at least 16 passenger the Grand Trunk, as its name suggests, was built as an stations in the area described. This is the story of those ambitious trunk line across Canada East (Quebec) and stations and the railways that built them. Canada West (Ontario), connecting Chicago with a year- round Atlantic Ocean port at Portland, Maine. The line 1853-1857 – between Montreal and Portland opened in 1853. West of The first generation of Toronto railway stations Montreal, the Grand Trunk was built in two divisions, each by different contractors, with Toronto as the fulcrum Station very gritty, as a general characteristic. Station between them. very dark, the gas being frozen. Station very cold, as any GTR’s Central Division from Montreal to Toronto timber cabin suspended in the air with such a wind making was built by the British contractors Peto, Brassey & lunges at it would be. Station very dreary, being station.4 Betts; the Western Division to Sarnia, Ont., was built by —Charles Dickens, January 1854 famed Toronto engineer Casimir Gzowski. Both divisions featured substantial brick and stone passenger stations, The railway construction that Lady Elgin initiated in many of which survive, that were built in the most October 1851 was carried out over the next three years important communities along the way. until the line reached Collingwood, 94 miles northwest of Grand Trunk planned to build a grand station at Toronto. Like many early railways, the Ontario, Simcoe Toronto, similar to its eastern terminal at Portland, & Huron was a portage route, connecting Lake Ontario Maine. Unfortunately, the most important municipality with Georgian Bay on Lake Huron.