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Caption: Heading south on Elm Street, 623 just crossed the intersection with Main Street in the former Humberstone section of town. A couple of items of note, the building on the left is the former Humberstone Shoe Factory - claimed to be the largest in Canada (later Sunbeam Shoes, closed 1989 - today an Apartment building), the Cities Service on the NE corner is now an ESSO, and the house on the left was the birthplace of my maternal grandmother (constructed ~ 1860)...it is still standing. In what appears to be a UFO captured on film in the top left is in fact an ornamental street light typical of the day. #623 came to the NS&T in 1956 from the Montreal & Southern Counties and was scrapped sometime after Interurban service ended in March 1959.
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What a remarkable image. Just great !!!
Thanks Arnold… the UFO must be moving on me because it is in the Upper Right (not left)…
After I spent about three minutes looking for it.
)
Note too the old style black and white sign STOP Through Highway. Wonder if the 623 stopped?
A historical and wonderful image, and most informative and personal narrative ! Imagine the stories the front porch on Grandmother’s house could tell. Michael, another interesting item is that the white extra flags on 623 indicates to me that this not a regular Thorold-Port Colborne run, but perhaps an excursion, although the destination sign does say “Pt Colborne “. To answer Ray, from what I can remember from my rides on the NS&T, when street running the NS&T motormen obeyed traffic lights but I don’t know about broad stop signs. Looking at NS&T employees timetable Welland Division speed restrictions and notes, for Humberstone – Main & Cranberry Streets 10mph; Port Colborne, Crossing of King Street – must Stop. The sounding of whistle prohibited in Port Colborne and Humberstone except to prevent a collision. Nothing mentioned about the above intersection, so maybe cars slow but not necessarily stop. Many thanks for posting, John
Hello John… thanks for the nice comments…the house remained in our family well into the 1980′s so I was fortunate to be able to watch the CN Switchers going to and from Robin Hood right from the porch. In the time up till about ’84 there was a second set of Red/Green lights for the Killaly and Main crossings for the railway (not that they obeyed them). It is interesting that you mention Cranberry Street, this was the long forgotten name for Elm Street in Humberstone, and likely originated since it led out to the Cranberry Marsh north of the settlement. The SE corner of Main and Elm (Cranberry) location of the Humberstone Shoe factory was previously the NEFF Foundry, a multi-generational business that produced of all things, Automobiles, Bicycles, and Rock Drilling equipment that was used for the construction of the CPR (1870′s-80′s). A fire destroyed the foundry in the early 1900′s and the site was purchased to put up the Humberstone Shoe building which has been repurposed as apartments…Cheers
This is great! Klauk when was this line abandoned and switched to the ‘new’ freight bypass for Robin Hood?