Caption: A. W. Mooney's photo and subsequent discussion about the 1979 Mississauga derailment reminded me of another disaster that impacted rail operations (although much less severely) in the Mississauga area a year earlier.
On October 2, 1978, a tank of furnace oil caught fire at the Texaco refinery in Port Credit. The cause was arson by a Texaco employee. The proximity of the fire to the CN tracks (immediately behind the line of tank cars)can be seen in this photo, taken from Lakeshore Road at about 8:00 AM the next morning. At lower left is the spur leading to the main refinery complex, which was on the south side of Lakeshore. The building at right was also owned by Texaco. A TD-Canada Trust bank currently occupies this spot.
|
It’s amazing how all of this is long gone but for environmental issues the land is still vacant.
I remember hearing the explosion from Clarkson. Great pic Bruce. Thanks for sharing.
Years of use as a refinery has taken its toll: quite a bit of contamination at that brownfield site. Last I heard, Texaco was unwilling to sell it because of issues surrounding that.