Back in 1953, the railways were still vital to the local transportation system.
Although passenger volumes, with the exception of the years of the Second World War, had by then dropped precipitously since the peak of the late 1920s, passenger trains were still important as the chief means of moving mail and express. Any interruption of service was a serious matter.
One such break in service occurred in Guelph on March 18, 1953. Just to the east of Alma Street, in the west end of the city, Canadian National Railways operated a coaling facility for fueling up locomotives.
It consisted of a bin built of timber and elevated above the tracks.
One track passed underneath the structure. It was elevated about five or six feet above adjoining tracks to facilitate unloading into a cavity beneath the rails. From there, the coal was moved by elevator up into the bin, and from there it was loaded into the tenders of locomotives.
In 1953, the Canadian National line through Guelph used steam locomotives exclusively, but the coaling facility was utilized mainly for switching locomotives in the Guelph yards and to fuel local freight locomotives that were based at Guelph.
On that fateful day in 1953, a careless crew had neglected to tighten the hand brake of a car of coal they had left at the coaling dock. In the early evening a westbound freight train rumbled past the facility, moving quickly and causing a lot of vibration as it slammed through the many switches in the yard.
The train was on the timetable as number 401, but was known to railway men as the “Mad Dog.” It carried priority freight from Toronto to Guelph, Kitchener, and Stratford, and was 43 cars long on that day.
As The Mad Dog passed through the area, it appears that vibration caused the hopper car at the coaling tower to begin moving down the ramp. The track it was on joined the track on which The Mad Dog was moving.
The coal car, fully loaded, smashed into the side of the freight train about 20 cars behind the locomotive, knocking two of its cars off the rails and bringing the train to a shrieking emergency stop.
The stopped train blocked Alma Street, but more important was the fact that the overturned cars blocked the tracks, and three passenger trains were due shortly to pass that point. One favourable aspect was that no one had been injured.
Also fortunate was the fact that the derailment had occurred almost beside the old CN Guelph Junction station. No one was on duty there at the time, but crew members were able to advise management almost immediately of the affair by railway telephone.
They, in turn, sent instructions to halt all oncoming trains.
Less than a half hour after the incident, a wrecking train was steaming toward the site from Stratford, with a large steam-powered crane and a crew of labourers. As with all train wrecks, the first priority was to get at least one track open.
That was difficult because the car of coal had tipped and spilled more than 50 tons of coal across the three tracks that were in place at the point of impact.
The only means of moving it was by shovel. Canadian National officials rounded up every available man to clear the coal away with shovels. After two hours work the labourers had one track cleared, just as the wreck train arrived from Stratford at about 8pm.
All three scheduled passenger trains were able to pass, though they were between one and two hours late. Although the line was open, there was still plenty of shovelling to do to clean up the coal.
After the passenger trains had passed, the crane got to work, nudging and pulling at the derailed cars. The impact of the crash had knocked two cars off their wheels as well as overturning them. One, loaded with grain, rested on its side. The other, with a load of lumber, rested partially on top of the other, and was solidly jammed into place by cars that had remained on their wheels and on the track.
In 1953 the Guelph yard was a busy place at night. Five freight trains, and sometimes as many as seven, arrived in the small hours along the four lines coming into the Royal City, exchanging cars before moving on to their destinations.
The wreckage and plugged tracks made switching cars virtually impossible that night until the mess could be cleaned up.
Using floodlights, the clean-up crew worked into the night.
By 9pm, they had the hopper car upright, and most of the coal cleaned up. There was still a big mess, with lumber strewn everywhere like giant matchsticks, and grain scattered over the whole mess.
The scene seemed to offer a better show than anything on radio or television that night. At one point police estimated that about 500 spectators were at the site.
Many hung around until midnight. A few wags had advice on how best to handle the clean-up. The city police force assigned extra men to keep people away from the work.
The scene was an eerie one, with long shadows cast from the spotlights, burning torches, and escaping steam from the locomotives and the steam-powered crane. After the coal was cleaned up the priority was to pull the wheels from the wreckage so that the derailed cars could be placed back on them. Some of the wreckage was buried deep in the ballast, and cutting torches had to be used.
There was one injury. Bill Harrison, of Stratford, was working beneath a derailed car when a piece of metal snapped, lacerating his face. Dr. William Howitt patched him up at the Guelph General Hospital.
Bill Smith, the telegraph operator at the Guelph Junction station, was busy all that evening, arranging alternate routes for trains scheduled through Guelph that night. Officials at the scene concluded that the usual night-time switching operations at Guelph would not be possible.
Smith co-ordinated the alternatives that would be followed that night and morning.
Officials feared that the track might be buckled seriously, but as time went on it appeared that the damage was not as bad as originally feared.
Cleanup operations, including repairs to the damaged track, were complete by noon the next day. Today that seems like very quick work, but it was routine for the railwaymen of those days.
The Guelph 1953 wreck resulted from carelessness on the part of the crew that placed the carload of coal at the Guelph coaling facility. Those responsible undoubtedly faced an internal inquiry, and an uncomfortable time on the carpet explaining themselves to their supervisors.
A half century earlier, in the 1900 to 1910 period, train wrecks and crashes had been all too common, and had often resulted in serious injuries and death.
Previous to the 1953 Guelph incident, the most serious wrecks were a derailment at Breslau in 1936, and a wreck at Georgetown in 1948. Those are stories for another time.