Old Halifax

[OldDartmouthMark]

Additionally, a blurb from the Canada Science and Technology Museum, although its race history information isn't well worded.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cstmweb/3330230277

Canada Science and Technology Museum
Hubley Bluenose Special Race Car
Artifact No.: CSTM AS0079
Date: ca. 1936
Source: Mr. David Boon
Recent Acquisition

This race car, called the Hubley Bluenose Special, no. 6, was built by Reginald Hubley assisted by his father ca. 1936. Hubley was a mechanic from Halifax . The race car was assembled using components from various automobile manufacturers and was considered a "big car" in the jargon of the race course, or a sprint car.

Hubley participated in races held in Halifax at the Provincial Exhibition. He won a record number of races with no. 6. In 1938, the race car was put into storage until 2003 when it was restored to working condition and returned to the racetrack. This is one of only two racing cars in Canada that survive from before the Second World War. The other remaining example in Canada is not functional. Two other Canadian race cars of the period have been sold to American owners. No. 6 is emblematic of the phenomenon of racing cars on short dirt race tracks, popular in Canada in the early days of the automobile until the Second World War and beyond.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Found a little more info...

http://automobiliart.blogspot.com/20...to-canada.html

This open wheel dirt track racer was the last of a succession of dirt track racers built and successfully raced by Haligonian garage mechanic Reg Hubley, over the mid to late 1930's—and is now the only known surviving mobile Canadian pre-war race car!
The highlight of the 1930's race season for Maritime half-mile dirt pilots was the presentation each fall of the Nova Scotia Provincial Exhibition, where on each final Saturday the 1/2 mile horse oval featured the race cars.
For the 1938 race season Reg and brother Oz built a "new" #6, with the body fabricated by his father Milton Hubley, a sheet metal tradesman.

An accounting of that 1938 Exhibition race was given in the July 30 1957 Halifax Mail-Star as follows:
“A homemade racing car, which in its day topped the best racers from the USA, is currently in the hands of Ted Jenkins. Auto racing reached it's peak in this area just before the second world war and top honours were taken by mechanically talented Reg Hubley (4/09/06 to 7/4/41) who drove the car to victory at the Halifax Exhibition grounds at speeds up to 100 mph against a field of foreign racing cars.
With war declared in Sept. '39 and auto racing put on hold, #6 was now taking up valuable shop floor space. It was decided to hoist the car up into the rafters for the duration—where it rested out of sight and mind—and fortuitously escaped the wartime scrap-drives."

[K-Man]

Hahaha....100mph per hour on that track!? That's crazy! That was an interesting read. I didn't know that they held car races there as often as they did. I bet that was a pretty cool thing to see back then. I had a laugh that they used cedar 2x4's to reinforce the frame. Ahhh, the good ol' days when no one cared about safety standards.

It's amazing that it remained in storage for as long as it did, eh? I wonder if the MMHF will ever have it on display again? That's something I would enjoy checking out. Since we're on the subject of racing at the Exhibition Grounds I thought that I'd throw this up. The image is titled "Union Engine Co. Reel Race at Exhibition Grounds, Willow Park" and dated 1891. It offers a nice little (and rare) glimpse of the west facade of the Cotton Factory as well. There's a handwritten note on the back that reads "No one in this race reached 100mph because that is insanity on a small dirt track"......ok, so that's not really written there.


Source: NS Archives - https://novascotia.ca/archives/Conno...ves.asp?ID=578

So, getting back to the Windsor Park DND building I forgot that I had saved these two little gems a while ago. They're both taken at the corner of Young & Windsor St. with a date of Sept. 1940. The first image offers a nice little view of our building just to the right of the telephone pole. If you look closely off to the right again you can see the 2 other buildings from the aerial shots posted above and they too have the same shape. It must just be the angle that the photographs are taken from but that sure doesn't look like the roundhouse/turntable building in the foreground, eh? The chimney's (are they chimneys?) seem to match up though with the aerial images.

Also, a while ago I had been doing a little reading about the Samson and Albion locomotives. In one of the articles it was mentioned that train sheds of the day were all built with a "bump" or a high roof in the middle to accommodate the smoke stacks of the trains. Although that would have been early and mid 1800's I wonder if that might explain the shape of the buildings here?

And as a final note, even though you can see the shadow of a building in the bottom corner, it's amazing to me that 80 years later that lot is still empty. There's even a telephone pole in the exact same location today, lol.


Source: HRM Archives - https://gencat1.eloquent-systems.com...=Halifax+Forum


Source: HRM Archives - https://gencat1.eloquent-systems.com...=Halifax+Forum

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by someone123

There is a Noticed in Nova Scotia post on the seaport area with photos from around 1981:
https://halifaxbloggers.ca/noticedin...rminals-c1981/

There are some photos of a large concrete building that was a cold storage facility built in the area in 1928. I'd seen this in some old photos before but wasn't sure what its purposes was.

Thanks for posting that. I recalled seeing it in the photo below from the NS archives, and had wondered about it. Mr. Archibald really captured its character well in the photo above!



https://novascotia.ca/archives/McCul...ives.asp?ID=79

From an architectural perspective, I don't know if it would be considered Art Deco, but it surely seems to have some deco elements in it...

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by K-Man

Hahaha....100mph per hour on that track!? That's crazy! That was an interesting read. I didn't know that they held car races there as often as they did. I bet that was a pretty cool thing to see back then. I had a laugh that they used cedar 2x4's to reinforce the frame. Ahhh, the good ol' days when no one cared about safety standards.

It's amazing that it remained in storage for as long as it did, eh? I wonder if the MMHF will ever have it on display again? That's something I would enjoy checking out. Since we're on the subject of racing at the Exhibition Grounds I thought that I'd throw this up. The image is titled "Union Engine Co. Reel Race at Exhibition Grounds, Willow Park" and dated 1891. It offers a nice little (and rare) glimpse of the west facade of the Cotton Factory as well. There's a handwritten note on the back that reads "No one in this race reached 100mph because that is insanity on a small dirt track"......ok, so that's not really written there.



So, getting back to the Windsor Park DND building I forgot that I had saved these two little gems a while ago. They're both taken at the corner of Young & Windsor St. with a date of Sept. 1940. The first image offers a nice little view of our building just to the right of the telephone pole. If you look closely off to the right again you can see the 2 other buildings from the aerial shots posted above and they too have the same shape. It must just be the angle that the photographs are taken from but that sure doesn't look like the roundhouse/turntable building in the foreground, eh? The chimney's (are they chimneys?) seem to match up though with the aerial images.

Also, a while ago I had been doing a little reading about the Samson and Albion locomotives. In one of the articles it was mentioned that train sheds of the day were all built with a "bump" or a high roof in the middle to accommodate the smoke stacks of the trains. Although that would have been early and mid 1800's I wonder if that might explain the shape of the buildings here?

And as a final note, even though you can see the shadow of a building in the bottom corner, it's amazing to me that 80 years later that lot is still empty. There's even a telephone pole in the exact same location today, lol.

Interesting photos and comments, and yes it's amazing it's still empty, but IIRC there is a proposal on the books to build a residential/commercial development there?

Regarding the train buildings, I believe it was common to have some windows or other method of ventilating the smoke from the train's stack at the side of those raised portions.

FWIW, here's another example of the raised section in the pic below at Pier 3-4 from 1890:


https://novascotia.ca/archives/Notma...ives.asp?ID=54

[K-Man]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

The semi-circular building looks like a roundhouse for locomotives. There was one in Fairview, in behind the Joseph Howe Superstore, but now only the turntable remains.

https://goo.gl/maps/AzpgNZZ4yhPPrWGPA

I wasn't aware of there being one in the Windsor Park area, but now the building makes sense, as it seems to look like some sort of railroad shed.

Here's a view of the Fairview roundhouse from around the late 1940s, apparently

I've been intrigued since you posted this a few days ago so I decided to make a trip to "ground zero" to see what the turntable looks like today. It's in pretty rough shape...still pretty cool though.



Source: My image


Source: My image


Source: My image


Source: My image


Source: My image

[K-Man]

YORK REDOUBT AND IT'S MAGICAL LATRINES

Hey all!
I always enjoy seeing "then & now" images so I though I'd throw this up for a laugh. We were out at York Redoubt today for a little hike snapping some pictures and one of the buildings I photographed was the Artillery Store/Canteen. When we got home I decided to see what other buildings used to be onsite and discovered that right behind the artillery store/canteen used to be a couple of outhouses. And what's onsite today 140 years later in the exact same spot as the latrines used to be? Oh, just a couple of WELL fertilized spruce trees!

Yuck.

Date: 1880

Source: NS Archives - https://novascotia.ca/archives/royal...ves.asp?ID=128

Date: 1881

Source: NS Archives - https://novascotia.ca/archives/royal...ves.asp?ID=156

Date: 1880

Source: HMHPS - https://hmhps.ca/sites/york-redoubt#images-25

Date: Present Day

Source: My image


Source:My image of the information plaque onsite

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by K-Man

I've been intrigued since you posted this a few days ago so I decided to make a trip to "ground zero" to see what the turntable looks like today. It's in pretty rough shape...still pretty cool though.

Urban exploration at its finest! Thanks for posting those. I too had always wanted to check out the site, but unlike you had never gotten around to it.

I'm assuming that the turntable is no longer in operable condition?

Could you see any evidence of the old roundhouse? I would think, to support the massive weight of those old locomotives, that there would have to have been a substantial foundation or pad below it. I can see the evidence of some of the rails which fanned out from the turntable imprinted in the weed growth pattern, but don't see much evidence of a building having been there.

Fascinating!

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by K-Man

YORK REDOUBT AND IT'S MAGICAL LATRINES

Hey all!
I always enjoy seeing "then & now" images so I though I'd throw this up for a laugh. We were out at York Redoubt today for a little hike snapping some pictures and one of the buildings I photographed was the Artillery Store/Canteen. When we got home I decided to see what other buildings used to be onsite and discovered that right behind the artillery store/canteen used to be a couple of outhouses. And what's onsite today 140 years later in the exact same spot as the latrines used to be? Oh, just a couple of WELL fertilized spruce trees!

Yuck.

Ha ha! Great observation. I wouldn't have thought to connect the trees to the latrine locations!

[ns_kid]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Urban exploration at its finest! Thanks for posting those. I too had always wanted to check out the site, but unlike you had never gotten around to it.

I'm assuming that the turntable is no longer in operable condition?

Could you see any evidence of the old roundhouse? I would think, to support the massive weight of those old locomotives, that there would have to have been a substantial foundation or pad below it. I can see the evidence of some of the rails which fanned out from the turntable imprinted in the weed growth pattern, but don't see much evidence of a building having been there.

Fascinating!

I am not certain, but I expect that turntable is used rarely, if it is operable at all. There was a second turntable in the city, located just southeast of the VIA station. I believe it was removed in the late 80s when VIA built its short-lived Halifax maintenance centre. (That's the long grey building with the blue trim on Marginal Road opposite Pier 21.)

The turntable was used both to shunt locomotives onto the diverging tracks leading to the roundhouse and to turn the locomotives. But roundhouses were built to service steam locomotives and were not particularly efficient places to work on diesels. Most were decommissioned or demolished in the 60s and 70s. But the Fairview roundhouse survived longer than most. Sources say it came down in March of 1991. As for turning locomotives, CN and VIA can do that on a balloon track at Halterm and on the wye at Windsor Junction.

I was able to visit the Fairview roundhouse in the 70s when I was in high school. It was still a pretty busy place then. Here are a couple of photos I found:

The first image is undated and attributed to Ron Wood, posted to a railfan forum:


Source: Railroad Line Forum

The second, a view of the building under demolition in 1991, is credited to John MacDonald, also posted to a rail photo site:


Source: Your Railway Pictures

Finally, here is a very shaky two-minute video of the building, apparently in the process of being demolished. It's posted to YouTube by "hamiltononkeith" with a date of 1989. If that date is correct it is possible the building was demolished in stages.

YouTube

These unique structures were ubiquitous in railroad towns for 100 years but few remain. That's a shame because some of those that have been saved have been put to great uses. Notable is the former CPR roundhouse in Toronto, below Rogers Centre, which now houses a brewery, restaurants, a Cineplex Rec Room and a museum. Sadly Nova Scotia's last roundhouse, the former Dominion Atlantic roundhouse in Kentville, was bulldozed in an act of historical vandalism by a clueless town council in 2007.

[K-Man]

Oh cool, thanks for posting that youtube link "ns_kid". That was interesting to see it in action. His videos are a great resource, eh? I would say by the looks of things when I was there that it hasn't been in action for a while. The top ring and it's inside lip were rusted up pretty badly so I would say it hasn't turned in a good few years. I was surprised to see though in the first image you posted and in "hamiltononkeiths" video that it seemed to be in rough looking shape at that time as well. In the last few seconds of the video you can see the same hole in the foundation as can be seen today. I'm surprised they still allowed it to be used in that condition. With the massive weight of those locomotives I would think it would cause an issue with structural stability. Screenshot from video:


Source: Youtube - "hamiltononkeith's" video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ASYmbbvtCw

Also, "OldDartmouthMark" there didn't seem to to be any evidence of the old roundhouse foundation at all. I was hoping there would be just to snap a pic but everything is starting to get pretty overgrown. It's was pretty cool to check out though.

[ghYHZ]

Here’s some VIA RDC ‘Railiners’ gathered around the turntable in 1983. They covered routes out of Halifax to Yarmouth, Sydney and Fredericton.

[ns_kid]

Originally Posted by ghYHZ

Here’s some VIA RDC ‘Railiners’ gathered around the turntable in 1983. They covered routes out of Halifax to Yarmouth, Sydney and Fredericton.

Ah, the days when we had actual public transport options. How quaint.

It's worth noting that your great photo captures a couple of other lost structures on the Halifax skyline. Directly behind the most distant group of RDCs is the massive coaling tower, unused since CN retired its last steam locos circa 1960. And to the left of that, just above the building, is, I believe, the top of the steam-era Fairview water tower.

I'm not sure when it came down, but removing that reinforced concrete coaling tower would have been a massive undertaking; so much so that there are still a number of them extant around the world. (A Wikipedia entry lists seven surviving coaling towers in Canada -- all in Ontario -- and dozens in the US.)

[OldDartmouthMark]

Excellent photos and pics, folks. Thanks very much!

Maybe I missed this, but has anybody confirmed whether there was a roundhouse and train shed in Willow Park, as K-man's photos seem to show in previous posts?

[ns_kid]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Excellent photos and pics, folks. Thanks very much!

Maybe I missed this, but has anybody confirmed whether there was a roundhouse and train shed in Willow Park, as K-man's photos seem to show in previous posts?

That stumped me too but then I recalled seeing photos of an Intercolonial Railway roundhouse wrecked in the Halifax Explosion in 1917. I wasn't sure where it was, although I knew it couldn't have been in Fairview as the south end rail line was still under construction at the time of the Explosion.

I checked the map of the "devastated area" and there it is. The ICR's Willow Park Yard and shops were located at the corner of Windsor and Young and included a roundhouse and turntable along with car shops, which may be the tall building K-man highlighted.

When the main shops moved to Fairview I'm not certain, but they appear on a 1931 Halifax map. There were still rail yards above Kempt Road by '31 but no roundhouse in evidence. (And remnants of those tracks remained serving local businesses well into the 80s or 90s.)

Here's an extract from the 1917 map:


Source: NS Archives

Also worth noting, since we're digging deep in the weeds here, is that just a block away, in the block bounded by North, Clifton, Almon and Windsor, were the shops of the Nova Scotia Car Works. The company built freight and passenger cars starting in 1909 as the Silliker Car Company. It became Nova Scotia Car in 1912 but was wrecked in the Explosion and, as far as I know, it was never rebuilt. (They built at least 18 trams for the Halifax street railway between 1909 and 1915 but no more after that. Among those was car 60, built in 1913 and lost in the Explosion along with its motorman, James Arthur Bennett, 34.)

Here's the map view:

[OldDartmouthMark]

Thanks for that, on both counts! Mystery solved, and another piece of the puzzle in place.

So we know it survived the explosion, or was rebuilt afterwards, as it shows up in later photos. Presumably it was decommissioned when the Fairview facility was built.

As for when it was built, it had to be after 1878, as it does not show up on the city atlas at the time.


Source: NS Archives

Hmmm.... I'll have to keep looking into this.

[ns_kid]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Hmmm.... I'll have to keep looking into this.

There is nothing like a good mystery. You are right that the ICR (by then Canadian Government Railways) must have rebuilt at Willow Park since the railway cut didn't open to traffic until 1919 and the permanent station wasn't opened 1928. I would guess the Fairview shops would have come sometime after that. I don't have the answer to when Willow Park yard would have opened that but it is instructive that North Street Station opened in 1877. It may be logical to assume, as the railway expanded away from its original terminal at the base of Duffus Street, that new shops and freight yards might follow soon after.

[OldDartmouthMark]

A further look into the atlas from 1878, tracing the existing routes of the Intercolonial Railway reveals the location of the roundhouse and shops at that time, along the harbourfront, right at the Narrows:



https://novascotia.ca/archives/maps/plate.asp?ID=23

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by ns_kid

There is nothing like a good mystery. You are right that the ICR (by then Canadian Government Railways) must have rebuilt at Willow Park since the railway cut didn't open to traffic until 1919 and the permanent station wasn't opened 1928. I would guess the Fairview shops would have come sometime after that. I don't have the answer to when Willow Park yard would have opened that but it is instructive that North Street Station opened in 1877. It may be logical to assume, as the railway expanded away from its original terminal at the base of Duffus Street, that new shops and freight yards might follow soon after.

Yes! I know the information is out there, now I just have to find it! (sinister laugh of a deranged individual... )

[ns_kid]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

A further look into the atlas from 1878, tracing the existing routes of the Intercolonial Railway reveals the location of the roundhouse and shops at that time, along the harbourfront, right at the Narrows:

It’s easy to see why the railway would need to expand elsewhere. That was a pretty crowded terminal. I’ve always been curious exactly where the original station was and whether it was repurposed after North Street Station opened. But it’s not clear to me from that map. I’ve only seen I think two (very poor) photos of the first Halifax station.