Keith Hunt rose from a 31-cents-an-hour apprentice to vice-president and helped to take Canadian National from the steam era to diesels, with a mistaken dalliance with the jet age along the way. Keith Hunt started his working life as an apprentice electrician in the CN rail yards in London, Ontario. He ended his working life as […]
These three brothers were born at Yarmouth Centre, Elgin County, and were the sons of Emery Gloin (1849-1924) and Annie Harris (1858-1951). Emery had joined the Canada Southern Railway about 1883 and had worked on the New Sarum section gang for about ten years. Frank Gloin (March 4, 1888 – February 6, 1969) began his […]
Ken Verrell started working for the Pere Marquette Railroad in September of 1941 as an apprentice machinist. He became a licensed machinist four years later. He continued to work in the roundhouse on Wilson Ave. in St. Thomas but was laid off in November of 1959. The following month he began working for the Canadian […]
The largest emergency evacuations in North America, before Hurricane Katrina, occurred just before midnight on a November night in 1979. When a Canadian Pacific freight train carrying deadly chemicals derailed in the suburbs of Mississauga, the brakeman, Larry Krupa, unhooked the rest of the tank cars from the flaming wreckage – narrowly diverting greater destruction. The […]
They were the three middle sons of Edmund Cosens, a veteran of the Indian Mutiny of 1857. All were born in the 1860s in London, England. The family was drawn to Canada by the excitement of the railway fever of the early 1870s and came to this country in 1871, with the determined objective of […]
One of the most important components of a large company is selling and the subject of this article, Donald F. Graham, was the last Sales Manager of the Canada Division of the NYC Railroad. This was at the culmination of Dons’ career which consisted of 45 years in the railway business. Don resided in a […]
When the Southern Car Company in High Point, North Carolina closed its doors in 1916, an unemployed Canadian born Perley A. Thomas started his own one man business called High Point Mantel Company. The new company specialized in building high-end custom appointments for residences, businesses and churches in the area. Later that same year, while […]
Robert Clark had a diverse railroad career which included 38 years with the New York Central and its successors. His career path included employment as assistant division engineer, division engineer, division superintendent, chief regional engineer, system production engineer (track), system engineer (maintenance of way), assistant vice-president (design and construction) and assistant vice president (quality control) […]
Don Broadbear has maintained a life-long dedication to railway preservation in Elgin County. Also noteworthy is his time spent working with the Ontario Rail Association to operate some very successful steam excursions out of Toronto. Donald Broadbear is the only son of Percy Broadbear, a career locomotive engineer with Canadian Pacific Railway. At the age […]
Over 70 years a faithful member of his church, over 45 years a retired railroad employee, and for 28 years a member a member of St. Thomas City Council, Thomas Howard Currah was born October 30, 1893 at Oil Springs, Enniskillen Township, Lambton County, Ontario. The Currah family hailed from Carrigill, Parish of Alston, in […]