Back when railways still operated in northern Wellington County, there were several important junctions in the county. At the northwest edge of Harriston the Canadian National railway line divided. The original track, built in the 1870s as the Wellington, Grey and Bruce, headed to Clifford and on to Southampton. Later, a second line headed to Wiarton and Owen Sound. After some complex corporate re-organizations, that line branched from the original trackage as part of the Grand Trunk system.
That switch and the two routes from it were a perpetual cause of problems for crews unfamiliar with the location. Many times a train from Harriston headed up the wrong track. More than once a crew was astonished to meet a train headed in the opposite direction, with more or less disastrous results. A couple of those collisions have been featured in this column over the years.
The Grand Trunk and its successor Canadian National encountered, over the years, several incidents at Harriston not associated with trains taking the wrong tracks. A couple of those occurred in the early weeks of 1925, due in large part to severe winter conditions.
That winter was a severe one, and a trial of the skills of railway men in keeping the track open and the trains on schedule. Severe conditions, with sub-zero temperatures and deep drifting snow, began in mid-December of 1924. After several weeks some of the snow had turned to hard ice, and the plows had trouble keeping the snow plowed from the tracks. On January 26, a Monday, the northbound mid-day train to Owen Sound reached Harriston in late morning, more or less on time. A southbound way freight was already at the station, and the passenger train had to head into the siding to let it pass.
The siding had not been plowed for a few days, and it had a fresh accumulation of snow on top of snow already plowed onto it from the adjoining mainline track. As the engineer moved ahead to allow the freight to pass, he felt a series of lurches. His worst fears were confirmed. The locomotive had left the rails, lifted from the track by the ice on the rails.
Crews from both trains poked around at the derailment for a while, but made no progress. The Harriston agent then telegraphed Palmerston. A special train, including the crane stationed at Palmerston, was soon on its way. It took them the best part of three hours to get the locomotive back on the rails. Fortunately, there was no major damage. The passenger train resumed its run, arriving in Owen Sound about four hours late.
Exactly a week later, on February 2, the same train ran into more trouble at Harriston. The train to Owen Sound had made its usual stop at the station, and was heading north, passing through the switch with the line to Southampton at what seemed a safe and slow speed. At the switch the locomotive left the tracks, and ran along the ground between the two lines for about 100 feet. Then it came to a ditch. The locomotive fell over, with its cab projecting slightly onto the track of the Southampton line.
The crew realized at once what had happened. The fireman jumped to safety before the locomotive tipped. The engineer (a Mr. Clarke of Stratford) was not so lucky. He caught his foot and was unable to get clear. When all movement stopped he did manage to extricate his foot and himself from the wreckage, suffering only some scrapes and bruises.
Due to the conditions, with ice in the switches and deep snow, engineer Clarke had been moving slower than usual. That undoubtedly prevented the wreck from being more serious. Only the locomotive derailed, along with the lead axles of the baggage car. The following cars became detached from the engine, and rolled forward a few feet before the emergency brakes brought them to a stop.
As had been the case a week earlier, the southbound way freight was at Harriston. After some consultation, its crew ran the engine up to the wreck site, and brought the passenger cars back to the Harriston station, where the people joined passengers from the train to Southampton, which was scheduled to depart in a few minutes.
Railway officials, contacted by telegraph, authorized the Harriston agent to take the passengers to local hotels for their dinner at railway expense. With both lines to the north blocked by wreckage, it would be some time before the passengers could complete their journeys.
Later in the afternoon, Canadian National officials sent special trains from Southampton and Owen Sound to the wreck site. The trains consisted of all the spare coaches and cabooses available. Both trains loaded their passengers on the north side of the wreck site, and proceeded to take them to their destinations. They were very late and travelling under less than comfortable conditions, but all got home before dark.
As for the wreck itself, officials had the crane and a work gang from Palmerston arrived at the site of the wreck about a half hour after it occurred. Later in the afternoon a section man helped identify the cause of the wreck. He found part of a front wheel of the locomotive on the roadbed south of the wreck. The wheel had managed to negotiate several switches, but had failed at the junction switch.
The wrecking crew had little difficulty getting the baggage car back on the rails. With a little more work they were able to get the Owen Sound line cleared by a little after 4pm. The locomotive was a different matter. It was on its side between the two tracks with its cab on the track to Southampton.
With a little jockeying and plenty of bad language the crew managed to shift the locomotive to get the Southampton line open by 8pm. By then they had detached the tender, and had it back on the rails as well.
The men continued to work through the evening and into the early hours of the morning. As well as a difficult job and poor light they had to contend with bitterly cold weather and a biting wind. A number of the men had noses, ears and fingers nipped with frostbite. About one in the morning the foreman thought it best to call off further work until the morning.
Eventually the foreman decided that it was easiest to lay a temporary track, and shift the locomotive, which weighed more than 100 tons, on to it. Slowly they winched the locomotive back to the main track. By the time they got the locomotive hauled back to the Harriston station it was late afternoon on February 3, almost 30 hours after the wreck happened.
Service was back to normal through Harriston that evening, but the locomotive, Number 1618, spent much longer at the locomotive shops in Stratford, where repair crews put the big beast through a program of rebuilding.
Railway men in those days took their roles very seriously, going to extreme measures to keep trains on time and lines open. In 1925 there was already considerable traffic on the roads, but neither the province nor local authorities focused on keeping roads open in bad weather. Highways could be closed for weeks at a time, and then the railways once again came into their own as the major, and sometimes only, conduits for moving people, mail and express.