I took these pictures back in the summer of 2000, when I was endeavouring to build an HO scale model railway depicting the Meaford Subdivision of the Canadian National Railways (CNR) during the 1950s. This is the former Georgian Bay Fruit Growers Association cold storage facility at Thornbury, constructed in 1932.
As I relate in detail in
Steam at Allandale, the massive cold storage facility was a beehive of activity in September and October from the 1930s through the 1950s. "Apples Wanted" signs went up, beckoning truckloads of freshly picked fruit. Beginning in mid-September, a carload of crated apples from Thornbury was usually part of the consist of the daily way freight. These shipments were consigned to points in Northern Ontario such as New Liskeard. A similar pattern was followed with Norfolk County apples shipped from Simcoe, Ontario, as detailed in the pages of
Steam Echoes of Hamilton.
Refrigerator cars for this service were equipped with charcoal heaters to prevent freezing of the cargo. For more background on this activity, refer to my
Apple Harvest piece.
10 comments:
Ian. You are just a wealth of knowledge. I wish we were taught history about our own country when I went to school. But I guess it is never too late to learn. My mom was born and raised in New Liskeard so I would imagine she would have ate apples from this storage facility.
Hi Keith (er, Hookah?). The mining and lumber regions of Northern Ontario, and parts of Quebec, were the main recipients of the carloads of apples from Thornbury and Simcoe. New Liskeard, eh? Wasn't there a potato growing belt up there?
Further, Keith, I remember seeing switchlists from the 1940s Meaford way freight. There were refrigerator carloads of apples for New Liskeard in them. Over the course of a year (take 1953, for example), the ONR received about 80 carloads a year of apples from Southern Ontario.
The modest packing house (as my parents called it) at Burgessville consigned the following carloads of apples during the period October 1, 1930 and September 30, 1932: Montréal 15, Toronto 1, Hamilton 1, Ottawa 1, Brandon 1. In a ca. 1954 photograph of the depot taken by my Aunt Marion Beal (nee Austin) a reefer can be seen spotted at the packing house. During this same period Norwich, the next station (time table) east, consigned 18 carloads of apples with half being sent "down the line" to Norwich, presumably to the plant there.
Many of the dairy farms in Burgessville included an apple orchard of about 100 trees. At my maternal grandparents' farm about half the trees were what we called "eating" apples and the other half "juice". Picking up the latter was the job of the grandchildren every Thanksgiving.
Hi Jeff. Your comment about "eating apples" reminded me of a movie I saw the other day. Some Western, can't remember the name. A stranger at a bar ordered 'whiskey'. The bartender asked him 'what kind'. He said 'drinking whiskey'. Still haven't figured it out, but the apple analogy offers a few clues...
Correction: The apple carloads at Norwich were inbound to Canada Vinegar Co. Outbound apple carloads were quite meager: Brantford 1, Ottawa 2. By ca. 1934 CNR noted that "We have lost extensively at Norwich to motor truck competition; vinegar to the extent of one hundred cars per annum is being trucked to wholesale houses in Ontario as well as the apples inbound for the manufacture of vinegar."
Hi Jeff. That sounds right. Even in the early 1930s, when the Thornbury and Simcoe plants were going full bore with rudimentary highway competition, the carloads were going to distant locations in Northern Ontario, with a few to Quebec and the Prairies. Everything else, as you note, was on the highway.
On my Facebook page, Dan McConnachie added: "Picton also had an apple co-op when my wife and I lived there in the late 70's. It is gone now although there are pictures." Yes, Dan, and if I ever do the Belleville book, I'll cover the Picton and Brighton apple warehouses (add others).
I mean AND others.
The apple packing industry took root in Thornbury in the 1880s. Over the years Thornbury has been home to a wide spectrum of businesses.
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