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Lambton Yard R.L.Kennedy
R.L.Kennedy View of Lambton and West Toronto yards looking east towards Runnymede Rd. (taken from coal tower). Tracks on the right are part of the main portion of Lambton Yard, the farthest two being the westward and eastward main lines. Tracks in the middle lead to and from West Toronto Yard in the background and stretch west to Scarlett Road. Tracks on the left are called the Here Yard (#13 to #1) and Storage Yard (3 tracks) where the last two steam locomotives 3422 and 3632 which last worked out of Port McNicoll in April await movement to Angus Shops (Montreal) for scrapping. Building near the centre of picture located right at Runnymede subway (underpass) is the original 1913 yard office, a wooden structure replaced in 1976 by the present one. Note the many cabooses waiting for their crews. Also visible are reefers (refrigerator cars) with open ice hatches, empty hopper cars and various stored work equipment including two Jordan spreaders (bottom left near steam engine) and many types of freight equipment including box cars, tank cars, gondolas, flat cars etc. The lack of activity means the photo was likely taken on a Sunday. Note the single road diesel at the right. In the background are the Maple Leaf Mills grain silos. Church spires are visible to the right and an early high rise apartment. Summer 1960.
Looking to the West from the coal tower, summer 1960. History
Lambton Yard which got its name from the little village of Lambton Mills, was the main freight marshalling yard and included West Toronto Yard located in the "Junction", which in turn got its name from the railway junction of several lines. It stretched from the Diamond past Old Weston Road (overpass bridge), Keele Street, Runnymede Road, Jane Street and Scarlett Road, all subway underpasses, almost as far as the Humber River. The CPR Lambton Yard has been a part of the community since before World War I along with its neighbouring West Toronto Yard which dates back more than a century. Together they were the main freight marshalling yards serving Toronto from their inception in 1884 until April 1964 when a new modern Hump Yard was opened in Agincourt, following which Lambton continued in use for local trains and certain other freight. To understand the history of Lambton yard it is necessary to go back many years before it was actually built, back to the time when the Credit Valley Railway was being built in 1874. The yards and shops were in Parkdale. The CVR ran through (West Toronto) Junction, Lambton, Streetsville, Galt and Woodstock to St.Thomas which was a major centre for US railroads running between Niagara Falls and Detroit and beyond. Later the mainline was extended from Woodstock to London (1887) and Windsor (1890) becoming the mainline to the USA. The Ontario & Quebec Railway built their mainline from Perth where it connected with another line from Montreal, through Tweed, Havelock, Peterborough, Agincourt, Leaside, North Toronto to Toronto Junction (West Toronto) completing it in 1884. The line down the Don was not built until 1892 providing a direct line down to Union Station; prior to this time they had to back their trains to and from the Junction. By this time much was happening as the CVR was taken over by the O&Q. in November 1883 following which the O&Q was taken over by the CPR in 1884. The narrow gauge Toronto, Grey and Bruce Rly. was taken over by O&Q in August 1883 after having been standard gauged in December 1881. The TG&B ran from the Queen's Wharf through Parkdale, West Toronto, to Weston, Woodbridge, Bolton, Caledon, and Orangeville (1871) and beyond to Teeswater (1874), also Owen Sound (1873). Which meant the CPR was faced with the need to handle the traffic of these lines as well. It was this expansion that caused the CPR to relocate its main facilities from Parkdale to West Toronto. Yardmaster's house.
Growing traffic meant that Parkdale Yard was expanded east to Strachan Avenue to serve local industries and freight sheds. A small yard between Parkdale and West Toronto known as Hill Yard (located southeast of Bloor and Dundas Streets) also served local traffic. Leaside and North Toronto also had small yards. At one time major yards and shops were planned for Leaside (over 1000 acres) on the south side of the mainline opposite the Canadian Northern Railway's similar facilities but only a small yard on the same side as the CNR ever resulted. Increased traffic and conjestion continued in the Terminal. This was particularly serious during World War II when trains were held out of the yard for many hours waiting room. It was exacerbated by the 1937 abandonment of the line between Lindsay and Orillia forcing all eastbound grain movements from Port Mc.Nicoll to be routed through Lambton. Road engines were left on the train along with their crews waiting to get in the yard. Trains were held waiting power and could not get out of the yard. A classic Catch-22 situation. Crews would sometimes take turns sleeping on the engine or in the van, often waiting many hours for the light to get into the yard. Once they were yarded it was quite likely they would soon be called right back out again, and "booking rest" was frowned upon as there was war going on. At least they were being paid! Over the years many proposals for adding to the freight yards or relocating them were considered. A major yard to replace Lambton was to be built at Obico (west side of Kipling south of Dundas) next to the cut-off running down from the mainline to the CNR mainline at Canpa which the CPR used to get to Hamilton and Buffalo. It was also next to the mainline (former CVR) running to Galt, London and Windsor. The Great Depression of the 1930's stopped its construction and its absence during the heavy traffic flows of World War II seriously affected operations at the greatly over-taxed Lambton-West Toronto yards. Only a small storage yard was built at Obico but in later years a new facility for handling piggyback (intermodal) traffic was built there and still operates. About 1949 blueprints were again drawn up for improving things when it was proposed to convert West Toronto into a Hump yard. Again, this was cancelled and Lambton struggled on. Again and again new yards were talked about at such places as the Signet area north of Weston, and near Bolton etc. Finally by about 1960 the decision was made to go ahead with a major new yard to replace Lambton and West Toronto. This time it did proceed and in April of 1964 a modern Hump retarder yard and new shops were opened on 432 acres in North East Scarborough. Officially Toronto Yard it is often erroneously referred to as Agincourt Yard for its location. It did not eliminate Lambton, only downgrading it and other smaller yards, finally closing Parkdale. At its peak West Toronto and Lambton yards and shops employed thousands of men all of whom lived very close to their work. In fact, it was a requirement that train crews live within a one mile radius so they could be called for their trains by a call boy. Others lived close by simply for the convenience of getting to work quickly, often by walking. In addition, there was a very good business area in the Junction to serve their needs.
Yard engine is moving westward on the centre lead. Most likely this is the Stock engine, a 3 shift lead job switching the west end of West Toronto Yard, to the right is the "big lead" of Lambton Yard and on the left is the Here Yard lead. OCS coal and cinders in the foreground. 1935. Patterson-George Collection Map 1927 Lambton and West Toronto Yards Lambton Yard, and its accompanying West Toronto Yard, have undergone many changes over the long decades of their existence. Lambton itself was built in 1912-13 as an expansion of the adjacent West Toronto Yard, with Runnymede Road being the dividing point. This expansion took place at a time of heavy traffic growth of a young Canada. Lambton was designed to accommodate 55 car trains. Most commonly made up of 36 foot wooden 30 ton boxcars. At this time Ten Wheelers, (D10's and older) and Consolidations were common freight power, with P1 Mikados (5000 series) just coming on the roster. Lambton is a hump yard, Runnymede Road is the crest of the hump. Lead switching crews were said to “change off at the hump”, meaning the yard office. Both Lambton and West Toronto are saucer shaped so that cars could be “kicked” (cut off in motion), and allowed to roll freely into tracks or an “alley” without fear of them rolling out the other end. This allowed the crew to go about switching more cars. Only in this way could the large numbers of cars be switched per shift although this resulted in many heavy impacts causing much freight damage. Even cars placarded “Do Not Hump” didn’t always escape damage, so the freight claims people installed portable recorders that would enable them to determine when and where the lading suffered damage. It was common to see such cars chalked up with a clock face to indicate there was a “clock” inside the car. This did get careful handling for the one car out of hundreds. A huge V5 class 0-8-0 was assigned to the “Big Lead” to do this humping in Lambton, while on the West Toronto side a 6900 0-8-0 or 3400 2-8-0 was used. Similar engines worked other lead jobs and smaller 6200 0-6-0's did other yard and local switching. In the 1940’s came ALCO S-2 1000HP diesel switchers to replace steam. Six lead jobs were required to perform yard switching. One at each end of both yards, another to move cars between West Toronto yard and Lambton yard and yet another to switch the way yard. There was also a job each shift to switch the RIP tracks. In addition, there were several "local" jobs to switch industries. Yard Assignments Toronto Terminals 1954 Yard Engines gallery Traffic requirements necessitated a second track be added in 1905 to the mainline between North Toronto and West Toronto diamond and from there to Lambton. When Lambton yard was built double tracking took place in 1911 from Lambton to Obico except for the Humber River bridge where a gauntlet was installed until December 1914 by which time the bridge had been rebuilt. A gauntlet is 4 rails together without the need for switches that can only be used by one train at a time. At Obico a cut-off was built to Canpa in 1910 as a short cut to reach the Joint Section which would allow freight trains to and from Hamilton a direct route to Lambton Yard. Prior to this trains had to back in both directions via Parkdale to Bathurst Street. The Here Yard was changed from being a repair facility, the narrow gauge car dept. tracks were removed and 13 dead end tracks with “half moons” resulted. Aside from miscellaneous storage, vans (cabooses) for Toronto crews were kept here. London Division men who slept in their vans had a van alley between Jane Street and Scarlett Road next to St.Clair Avenue, a quieter part of the yard. Double ended, it was long enough to allow a gap between vans so as not to disturb others who were sleeping when the yard engine came for an ordered van. The road engine would get their own van if they were running light to Leaside yard for their train. The Great Depression caused a severe drop in traffic and West Toronto Yard was changed from a marshalling yard to a storage yard (by removing lamps from switches), to reduce taxes for the duration. Lambton Yard continued as a 24 hour a day marshalling yard. Lambton was originally divided into two yards, one for arrivals and one for departures. Closest to the mainline were 11 tracks and then more leads made a 9 track parallel yard. After 1921, this was combined into one yard with tracks extended closer to Scarlett Road to accommodate longer trains made up of 40 foot steel 40 & 50 ton box cars. Tank cars were 33', flat cars and gondolas were 41' , 46', 48' and a few 52', which were the longest cars in general use. Tracks 1-3 could hold 103-100 cars plus engine and van.
Both Lambton and West Toronto yards were used for arrivals, marshalling/classification and departures. West Toronto was for arrivals of north and east trains and departure of west and south (Hamilton) trains. Lambton for departure of north and east trains. Wayfreights and other local jobs were switched in the way freight yard, part of West Toronto yard. Some London trains also departed from Leaside yard. Map-old blueprint 1943 Details area shown below.
Lambton yard office May 27, 1956 Click
to read detailed caption 1912 subway under construction before yard office and roundhouse were built. 1915 new subway also shows yard office Streetcar tracks on Runnymede Road The Yard Office was located at Runnymede Road, on the north-west side of the subway (underpass). It was a large wooden building on a cement foundation where a General Yardmaster had responsibility for the operation of Lambton (and West Toronto) Yard. The General Car Foreman and General Locomotive Foreman had similar responsibilities for their respective departments, all of which were part of the Operating Department. Eventually, this decrepit building was finally replaced in July 1976 with the present brick building, in connection with construction of a new underpass on Runnymede Road which also resulted in minor track re-alignment of the leads etc. located on top of the bridge. See Part 3. Yardmasters, one for each of Lambton and West Toronto were located here. Another yardmaster was at the West End (just east of Scarlett Road), in a small shack referred to as "Churchill". Not sure why it was called that except in winter walking to it often felt like you were going that far north! All positions were 24/7 as they say now. In other words it took a total of 5 yardmasters per shift to run the yard. These yardmasters (except for the General), spent most of their time out in the yard, not sitting at a desk! As well there were switchtenders at each extremity, Keele Street Yard Office and Scarlett Road in the Scale House, who looked after getting trains in and out of the yard, as all switches were hand-operated. Utility men, known as the "marker up", one for each of Lambton and West Toronto, every shift, worked from Lambton yard office. These were yardmen who aided switchmen by Chalking Up arrived trains with marks to indicate where cars were going. One of the minor changes introduced early in 1960 was talk-back speaker system throughout the yard to enable the yardmaster to stay in touch with yard crews and vice-versa. An old-fashioned crank (magneto) phone system using a "clothes line" strung from one end of the yard to the other, had for decades provided the primary means of communication, and it worked just fine! You simply turned the crank to ring the place you wanted using coded rings. Two short, Yard Office; three short, Keele Street Yard Office; four short, Scarlett Road switchtender; two long, west end Yardmaster; one long one short, Ice house switch shanty; one long, West Toronto Diamond; one long two short, Northern Diamond. It was acknowledged with one short ring, and you then lifted the receiver and talked on the party line. It was not long afterwards that two-way radio was added to all yard engines. A second phone line ran to the West Toronto shops. There were other local phone lines, including one between Leaside Yard and Lambton Yard Office, another at Lambton Roundhouse, and still more at Parkdale, John Street etc. This system was used at yards everywhere on the CPR. The other means of private communications was the train dispatchers system that ran all along every track across Canada. These lines were a carrier system of party lines controlled by the appropriate dispatcher. There was also the morse code telegraph system which dated from the earliest days and remained in use to supplement the telephones. All of these systems were maintained, including the pole lines, by the Communications Department. Two way radio was installed in 1960's in all yard and local engines to aid in communication with the yardmaster including customer service switching instructions etc. Earliest use of radio was in Oct.1946 at the Coach Yard.
West Toronto Yard
West Toronto Yard looking west along the ice house lead.
(ice house behind camera) Coaling plant at right. The CVR roundhouse and car shops at Parkdale were built in the 1870's, following the beginning of construction in 1874 and the opening of the first portion of the line in 1877. They were soon to become inadequate to handle increasing traffic and this brought about the West Toronto shops and yard. (Parkdale shop remained in use until 1907). In 1891 a brick roundhouse was built with a rectangular machine shop and blacksmiths shop along the back of it. The roundhouse was later expanded to 32 stalls. A large 15 track erecting shop with a transfer table was added. Also built was a car shop, complete with a transfer table, making West Toronto the only location in Canada having two transfer tables, (these move laterally rather than in a circle as a turntable does.) The car shop was expanded handling both freight and passenger equipment. In later years a new coach shop was built at John Street and the West Toronto shops concentrated on freight and service equipment including rebuilding wooden vans. The largest steam locomotives that could fit into West Toronto roundhouse were D-10's and these were soon replaced by bigger power for heavier freight trains. Prior to the Great War (World War I) a D-10 and 35 cars was a full-sized freight train. West Toronto yard was expanded, but this wasn't enough and a new yard was built (Lambton) adjacent and to the west of it, from Runnymede to Scarlett Road. A new larger (Lambton) roundhouse was built at Runnymede and St.Clair. It originally had 30 stalls and was later increased to 37, with others made longer to accommodate bigger power, including P2 class 2-8-2's. West Toronto roundhouse continued in use for yard steam engines and later diesel yard switchers. In the early 1950's the newest portion of the roundhouse, a separate 11-stall section was no longer needed and was demolished. Stored in there had been a genuine 4-4-0, #30. It had been a spare engine for the old K&P, a light branch line and had last been used in 1949 in the movie Canadian Pacific staring Randolph Scott. Only three others remained on the roster, the famed trio of 29, 136 and 144, all destined for preservation. The Erecting shop (a.k.a the Back Shop), performed medium overhaul work on steam locomotives, while Angus Shops in Montreal did major, heavy rebuild work. Angus also built brand new steam locomotives! The last steam engines repaired at West Toronto were: 807, 2332, 3607, 5116 and finally 1098, which left on June 29, 1957. Road diesels were maintained there for a short time, but the shop was loaned to the Engineering Dept. for Maintenance of Way machinery repair. The roundhouse was later used by the Bridge & Building Dept., and the Signals & Communications Dept. The turntable remained in use to turn diesels, both road and yard power, also the one track running through into the erecting shop, remained in place.
Ice house, viewed from the southeast. 1915-16 The ice house (for icing refrigerator cars) located near Keele Street was removed in 1928 following installation of a four hundred foot icing dock at the Lake Simcoe Ice plant on the North Toronto Sub. Also located in West Toronto near the roundhouse shop tracks were the gas house, a small cement block building used by the Car Dept. to service heaters in insul boxes and reefers. As well as washout tracks where car interiors were cleaned by a contractor, Lauderdale Car Cleaners, who also did stock cars which were cleaned and manure loaded into old wooden gondolas at a small facility known as the Klondike. This was two short tracks with end ramp located on the northwest edge of the yard at Ethel and Dodds Aves. where West Toronto Street ends. Rubbish would be burned in open incinerators or shipped off to a railway dump, at one time there was one at the west end of Leaside yard but in the 1960-70's it went to Port Mc.Nicoll. Old wooden rolling stock was burned and scrapped at Scarboro Pit. Keele Street Lambton station was closed in 1939. The Car Dept. building next to it was also closed. It is said part of the station was moved on a flat car and became the Keele Street yard office. (This MAY have been a World War II expansion of operations). This small wooden office was replaced in 1959 with a larger cement block building to accommodate Industrial Clerks and the Yardmaster. These clerks kept track of a new system of Car Control for local industries. There were Mobile Checkers who drove Morris Minors painted in CPR Tuscan Red with large CPR Freight emblems on the doors. This allowed clerks to check sidings, pick up Bills of Lading etc. from customers. This building was demolished after Toronto Yard opened. There was a yardmaster at the east end Keele Street Yard Office overseeing the Ice House Lead Job, as well as the Local jobs that worked industries. A switchtender was located here every shift to let trains in and out of the yard. A switchmen's shack was located beside the Ice House Lead and was used by the yard foreman to telephone information up to the hump or talk with the Keele Street yardmaster.
New concrete block yard office at Keele Street is still under construction. Railing to the right is the north west corner of subway underpass. Old yard office is to the left, RIP track and wheel shop in the background. The Ice House once stood near here, a little to the west by the back shops. R.L.Kennedy
Yard job with U3 class 0-6-0 6213
heads east from Keele Street to Lake Simcoe Ice on the North Toronto Subdivision
to load up newer "Ashdown" cars with ice. CP 422969 is first
car. 7/12/47 Al Paterson Photographs
4006-4402 Alco FA1 and FB1 #76858, 76880 5/49 Oct. 23,1955
Don McCartney Photographs of the trains that once ran in and out of Lambton Yard can
be found in various Articles including: Road Engines gallery new Yard Engines gallery Part 2 Lambton Roundhouse Part 3 After Agincourt (1964) Part 4 West Toronto and
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