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Caption: Canada & Dominion Sugar 7456 (a former Canadian National 0-6-0, nee-GTR, that was first leased by C&D and later purchased) switches hoppers and drop-bottom gondolas loaded with locally-grown sugar beets into the Chatham Ontario plant in November 1960. Next year the harvest would be switched with a Wabash diesel locomotive, and would be the last year before the plant was torn down.
The Canada and Dominion Sugar Company was a result of the 1930 merger between sugar producers Canadian Sugar Refining Company (of Montreal) and The Dominion Sugar Company of Chatham ON. By this time, the company had just changed names in 1959 to Redpath Sugars Ltd.
The Chatham plant was built by the Dominion Sugar Company in 1915 and located north of Merritt Ave and King St. West just south of the Thames River, served by rail from a spur off CP's Windsor Sub. The opening of the new Redpath Toronto plant on the harbourfront of Lake Ontario (with access to the new St. Lawrence Seaway) in 1959 resulted in the closure of the Chatham plant in short order. The end of the use of sugar beets in Ontario plants would follow a few years later when the Wallaceburg plant was closed in 1968 (the Toronto plant used cane sugar).
7456 was saved from the scrapper in 1964 by the Ontario Government for inclusion in a proposed rail museum with other steamers (that never came about), and today is presently on display at the Heritage Village in Sidney, Michigan.
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A most interesting account of the sugar industry and this switcher.
Your photo collection just keeps better and better—thank you for sharing
Great caption. I did not know of the sugar beet industry around S. Ontario. These days it seems all that is “planted” is windtowers and pot.
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BTW: I’d like to know what format camera was used for this image. It is one crisp image !!
Sister engine 7470 was also owned by C&D at their Wallaceburg plant. It too was part of the still-born Ontario Government Transportation Museum. It too remains in existence but a much happier one. For years it has operated on the Conway Scenic RR in New Hampshire.
I was the railway consultant to the Ont. Govt. at the time the engines became available and I urged their acquisition. They were bought for $2000 each! Later resold for $4000 each.
For B&W photos I used 2 1/4 SQUARE Balda a used camera I purchased. It hade vey good lens
Bill
I remember that engine. My Father worked at that plant as a stationary engineer for ten years from 1957, when I was 2 years old, till 1967 the year before it shut down. I am unconvinced your dates are correct. That engine delayed me almost daily in the fall and into the winter as I had to cross those tracks pictured from where we lived on Kerr Ave to get to school at Winston Churchill Elementary where I attended grades K-6. If you look at the school in Google Earth you can still see the line of the original school yard fence that separated us from the rail spur area.
I drove by the site in the late 70′s and there was the steam engine parked up by the river. They had torn down almost all of the plant except the white silos that are in your picture by that time. My Father claimed the engine had been taken away later in the year. I’m sure my Father would have been able to provide better recollections but he passed in early 2017 aged 88.
Interesting comment David. My father and grand father both worked Wallaceburg and Chatham. My dad was a 2nd class stationary engineer there as well. My father also ran steam crane in wallaceburg loading beets. I was only around 10 years old and knew the engineer running locomotive 7470 in Wallaceburg. I remember them taking off the connecting arms fo that it can be shipped. I also was in Michigan and took pictures of 7456. My dad passed early 2017 at 88 as well