A new railway station for Barrie

At our weekly Orillia Farmer's Market gig yesterday, Gary Bell dropped by the table. Like me, Gary was (and still is) a Barrie boy. We grew up within a city block of each other; my brother and I chummed around with his younger brother Jim. While Gary and his son looked through my books, we talked of childhood and about Barrie's (and Allandale's) railway past.

Gary and I chatted about the restoration of the former Grand Trunk and Canadian National Railways (CNR) Allandale station. Prompted by my chat with Gary, I brought myself up to date on the City of Barrie's restoration of the Allandale "train station". I guess it's inevitable that most people call these buildings "train stations", but I prefer the term "railway station". I was particularly fascinated by state-of-the-art investigative techniques such as analyzing the (more than a dozen) layers of paint on the building interior. Such microscopic study tells a story in itself.

Back to the "train station" versus "railway station" business. I spent a good number of years researching, writing and publishing two hardcover books on the network of railway lines centred at Allandale (the southern part of Barrie). The CNR Allandale Division, save for the Bala Subdivision mainline (itself covered in a third volume about the Northern Ontario District, Steam in Northern Ontario), is presented in moment-to-moment detail in Steam at Allandale and Steam Scenes of Allandale. It is an injustice to describe the three former Grand Trunk (Canadian National) buildings under restoration the "Allandale train station". They were much more than that, and a couple of snippets from the books will illustrate that.

From Steam at Allandale:

Standing watch over all the proceedings in its position of prominence on Kempenfeldt Bay, as it has since the heyday of the Grand Trunk Railway, is the Allandale station. Below a tower on the south end, a rotunda affords passengers a view from the waiting room. Telegraph and ticket offices, an operator’s bay, baggage room, express room and the freight office share the remainder of the southernmost building. A canopy-covered passageway for platform wagons adjoins the station restaurant, a landmark for railway travellers and offering the finest Sunday dining for local residents. In the third building, telephone and telegraph lines hum as the offices of the Division Superintendent, Chief Dispatcher, Master Mechanic, Yardmaster and Chief Engineer direct the operations of the entire Allandale Division.

And then, from Steam Scenes of Allandale:

Well into the CNR era, the former Grand Trunk Railway station constructed at Allandale in 1905 retains its majestic appearance. Three buildings comprise the division point facility: a conventional train order office and waiting room at the southernmost end, a first-class restaurant in the centre, and a divisional and despatchers’ office at the northernmost end. During the summer of 1956, the appearance of the Allandale station complex will be drastically altered with the removal of the tower. At the same time, a program to gradually replace the distinctive clay roof shingles with those of the tarpaper variety will begin, resulting in a patchwork appearance to the roof for several years. While some artists have depicted the Allandale station with a train order board during the steam era, that indignity will not adorn the building until the late 1960s.

Memo to City of Barrie, which is mulling over a name for the new GO Transit station in the vicinity of the Allandale station restoration: 'Barrie South'? You've got to be kidding. Call the new station the only name it deserves: Allandale.