TH&B station, in Hamilton, Ontario

doctorwayne

Active Member
I was unable to keep my planned appointment on Saturday to see the former TH&B station in Hamilton, as part of the Doors Open Ontario programme, but did manage to check it out on Sunday. Here are a few pictures.
Here's the main entrance on Hunter St. We're looking south, and the track is on the opposite side of the station, on an elevated right-of-way. The original station stood roughly where I stood to take this picture, with the tracks in the street. In the 1930s, a grade separation project eliminated all of the street crossings in the downtown area, and included the construction of this art-deco station.
As a child, I lived a couple of blocks to the east (to the left), about the same distance from, and, as in this view, facing the tracks. A great start to a life-long love of trains.:thumb:
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Here's a view of the east side, with part of the covered platforms visible to the left of the building. As indicated by the sign at the top of the tower, the station is still in use by the provincially-operated GO Transit.
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This is still the east side, but now looking east. The platform roofs are more apparent.
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Here's what you see looking from the west side. GO Transit spent millions completely refurbishing the building, both inside and out. The tower originally housed offices of the railway.
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This is a view from the west side of the station, looking west along Hunter St. At the far end of the sidewalk is the underpass for James St. S. (The sidewalk angles off to the right as Hunter St. rises.)
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Here's an inside view of the waiting room, looking southeast. The tracks are overhead, with access to the right (access to buses also, as the GO trains operate out of this station only in the early morning and late in the day.) Between those times, shuttle buses run between here and the station in Burlington.
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This shot was taken from the same location as the previous one: the exit to Hunter St. is in the centre, with the mezzanine above. At the right is the exit to John St., and the exit to James St. is behind the camera.
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Here's a look west out of a mezzanine window: you can see how Hunter St. rises at the right side of the picture. Right about where that dark church steeple is (immediately right of the main sprig of that scrawny tree), the TH&B mainline enters a tunnel, which runs west for several blocks under Hunter St.
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Here's a view of the mezzanine, with the lobby/waiting room below. The tracks and platforms are outside of those frosted windows at right. Cool light fixture, eh?
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This is the original CTC board, which has been moved somewhat from its original position. Originally, it was oriented 90 degrees to the right, and somewhat closer to the tracks, allowing the operator (a former operator was on hand to answer questions) to see the mouth of the tunnel simply by turning his head to the right. This board controlled the entire railway, from Welland, Ont. to Aberdeen Yard, in the west end of Hamilton.
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There were several former TH&B employees on hand to answer questions and share tales of the line. One fellow, who had hired on when steam was still around, had worked with the conductor father of a friend of mine, and shared a couple of anecdotes.
I hope that you've enjoyed these pictures as much as I enjoyed my visit to this piece of Hamilton's history.

Wayne
 

MasonJar

It's not rocket surgery
Very cool Wayne - thanks for sharing those pictures...! ;)

I think it is especially great that the art deco lettering for TH&B is still on the side of the building. The conference centre in Ottawa (former Union Station) has had its lettering removed... :(

And those art deco features are sooooo cool! :cool:

Andrew
 

beamish

HO & Steam Engineer
I like the pic of the CTC board. It looks just like many of the Control panels i have seen used by modelers. Also gives me some ideas for how i will be building mine up.

Thanks
 
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