(rshsdepot) Montreal Windsor Station

[Derek Boles <derekboles_@_rogers.com>]

This appeared in yesterday's Toronto Globe & 
Mail. The Canadian Pacific Railway has owned 
Windsor Station in Montreal for 118 years. I 
can't think of another major 19th century railway 
station in North America still owned by the 
company that built it.

FACTS & ARGUMENTS: THE ESSAY
Travellers' footprints from the past
The storied Windsor Station has seen its share of joy and despair
ROBERT N. WILKINS
June 5, 2007

Virtually every day, as part of my 
well-established morning routine, I pass through 
the main concourse of Montreal's majestic and 
historic Windsor Station. More often than not 
when I do so, this now-disused station (a jewel 
of Victorian urban architecture), is devoid of 
human beings and all mortal activity. 
Occasionally, but just occasionally, when the 
grand hall has been leased for an evening gala, 
workmen will be found configuring the space for 
that specific happening. This, however, is the 
exception and not the rule.

Normally, whenever I enter this august expanse 
from Montreal's golden past, my pace slows and I 
meander about the celebrated complex deep in 
reflection.

I always stop for a few moments in front of the 
venerable brass-framed departure-and-arrival 
board, which now displays eight large, poignant 
photos from bygone times of the illustrious 
edifice. My preferred depiction is the one from 
the Second World War where the concourse is 
replete with soldiers and sailors, all most 
likely about to go off to conflict. I eagerly 
scrutinize the image, looking intently at the 
diverse faces present in the black-and-white 
representation. Many, aware that the picture was 
about to be taken, peer resolutely back at me, 
and into history.

My initial (albeit vague) memory of this striking 
railway station goes back to my early childhood 
when my mother took my sister and me to the 
passenger depot to greet my father who was 
returning, via New York, from a two-month 
business trip to England. The vessel upon which 
he had sailed the Atlantic was none other than 
the Cunard Liner Queen Elizabeth. He made his way 
from New York, by overnight train, to Windsor 
Station where the three of us were anxiously 
awaiting his return. My sister, then 8, remembers 
our parents' long embrace.

For my part, a child of 6 at the time, I don't 
recall much of what I imagine was a distinctly 
happy family event. Little could I have realized 
that some 14 years later that same grey 
limestone-clad rail terminus would, for a brief 
period of time, become pivotal to my own life.

It was during the summer of 1967, some 40 years 
ago. I was engaged as a "garçon de table" on 
Canadian Pacific's transcontinental run, the 
origin of which was that same iconic Windsor 
Station. What better way, I thought, for a poor 
struggling university student to celebrate 
Canada's Centennial than exploring the country 
while, at the same time, earning ready money.

I reported to the station once a week, to a 
rather drab-looking office just beyond the 
security buffers found at the end of each track. 
Once there, I met up with the other members of my 
standing crew; we all signed in, then climbed 
aboard our quaint and dated dining car wagon for 
its 8 P.M. departure, bound for Western Canada. 
Lucklessly (as we then thought), our part of the 
run ended in Winnipeg and, consequently, none of 
us ever got to see the Rockies and, beyond them, 
Vancouver, about which we had all dreamt.

As far as the renowned Montreal train terminal 
was concerned, at 20, I was completely oblivious 
to it and the significance of its history to this 
city. Indeed, the limitations of advanced 
adolescence are such that I did not even once 
recall that joyful family morning in June of 
1953, and, without doubt, I was totally unaware 
of the incredible tragedy that had unfolded in 
that very same station some 58 years earlier.

On St. Patrick's Day of 1909, several lives were 
lost when an out-of-control express passenger 
train from Boston blasted its way through, first 
the buffers, then the ladies' waiting room, 
before finally coming to rest on the main 
concourse of the station itself, killing or 
injuring all those who were in its way. Both the 
fireman and the engineer had jumped from the 
ill-fated locomotive before it careered wildly 
into the terminal early that morning. Mr. W. J. 
Nixon of Ash Street, Montreal, lost his wife and 
both children - all three meeting death while 
waiting for him in the Ladies' Waiting Room, a 
portion of which was levelled by the force of the 
violent impact.

Intriguingly, in a strange twist of fate, a third 
child, one Elsie Villiers, a survivor of the 
infamous 1907 Hochelaga School fire which cost 
the lives of 16 pupils and their teacher Sarah 
Maxwell, was killed instantly when debris fell 
upon her as a result of that tragic mishap.

Footprints? When I next find myself standing 
well-nigh alone in the "salle des pas perdus" of 
beautiful Windsor Station, I will muse on the 
invisible footprints that have been left behind 
by all who have passed within its historic 
fortress-like walls.

Robert N. Wilkins lives in Montreal
=================================
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End of RSHSDepot Digest V1 #1555
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=================================
The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org