Caption: How the mighty have fallen: the decline of the significance of Canadian passenger rail travel is exemplified by this photo of the old 1931 Canadian National Hamilton (James Street) Station, once hosting many steam-powered passenger trains at its platforms, but now mostly relegated to a car repair shop for CN's car department, working on freight cars from the nearby Stuart Street yard and Hamilton industrial area in need of repairs.

Heavyweight 6-axle passenger cars pulled by Northerns have been replaced by beat-up gondolas used for hauling scrap, flatcars, and barrel ore hopper cars used on the Dofasco ore trains from the north. A wheel flatcar is visible at the bottom left, used for hauling new wheelsets to shops and yards for change-outs, and used wheelsets to the scrapper.

The platform on the right with the covered ramp from the station still served what few passenger trains still called on Hamilton at this time. VIA operated about a half-a-dozen Toronto-Hamilton-Niagara Falls RDC runs that stopped here. GO also ran 2-3 rush hour GO trains since the system's 1967 inception, and next year, the joint VIA-Amtrak "Maple Leaf" would start using the station. But by the early 90's, most passenger operations relocated to the new Aldershot Station, and Hamilton Station lay vacant. LIUNA would later convert the station into its present-day use as a venue and banquet hall.

Keith Hansen photo, Dan Dell'Unto collection slide.