Canadian Railways 2-Book Bundle. David R.P. Guay
the situation with additional troops. However, problems arose and/or continued elsewhere. On April 10, 1851, the editor of the Dundas Warden indicated the deep concern of a small community subjected to unruly labour thugs.
We deeply regret to state that our peaceful town has again been the scene of strife. Some further difficulty having arisen between the contractors and laborers on the Great Western, a portion of the latter came into town yesterday, armed with bludgeons, and drove off those employed on the works hereabouts. Two or three of the overseers were brutally maltreated and abused. We have no knowledge of the grounds of difficulty between the employers and employed … but this we must say, that the frequent repetition of scenes of violence is positively disgraceful.
Within a week, the municipal council of Paris would forward another petition for military protection to the government.
There is no reason to believe that labour strife was more serious on the Great Western than on other railway or canal projects of the era. No doubt, feuds among the many Irish immigrants were partially responsible. Workers took advantage of the difficulty the company had securing labourers. The boom period, with its extensive railway building, not only caused wages to soar but made it very difficult to obtain the quantity and quality of men needed. There is evidence that some of the supervisory personnel ruled with an iron fist and tried to take advantage of the immigrant workers. Regardless of who was at fault and to what extent, labour strife certainly delayed construction, increased costs, and left an unpleasant legacy in many southwestern Ontario communities.
By the end of 1852 progress, as measured by grading alone, had occurred on only a few very small and detached portions of the line. This was despite the request by company officials that the contractors start much earlier in the year (as early as February). The Hamilton-to-Twenty-Mile-Creek section had only been lightly graded and the procrastination of the contractors assured that it would be May 1853 at the earliest before rails could be laid.
Grading on the section from the Detroit River to one hundred miles east had also commenced. The original plan to build pile trestles over fourteen miles of the wet prairie west of Chatham was slow in its initiation. As engineers re-examined this plan they decided to modify it substantially. Instead of temporizing with pile trestles, the area was permanently graded using fill removed adjacent to the line and/or by hauling beach sand from nearby lakes.
Grading and masonry work on the eastern division, both east and west of St. Catharines, were problematic. Temporary grade and wooden pile trestles were to be used at Ten and Twelve Mile creeks. West of Hamilton there were more problems: the gorge of the Desjardins Canal, the ascending grade out of Dundas, and a deep quicksand deposit near Copetown. Costs skyrocketed due to the massive amount of overburden that had to be moved or excavated, by the huge and continuous earth slides in the deep cuts, and by the number/depth of wooden piles necessary to protect the foot of the slopes. In section 11, the sinking of an embankment into a deep morass or subterranean lake, not unlike muskeg, forced adoption of a new tactic. An extensive platform of coniferous trees and bushes, interwoven with earth so as to prevent the loss of ballast by its own displacement, proved the solution.
The area around London had but two cuttings with which to contend. West of London work proceeded around the clock.
Copetown was the most problematic site on the entire main line. The quicksand swallowed everything placed in it, and was so deep that a twenty-foot-long rod did not reach bedrock. Work was frustrating. After excavation of the roadbed to a depth of five or six feet during the day, the excavation would be reversed overnight by the weight of the adjoining banks. By the next morning it was as if nothing had been excavated the previous day!
This area led to the first major delay in the construction schedule for 1853. Roadbed was graded and rail was laid in a westerly direction from the edge of the quicksand. On Saturday May 14, 1853, with approximately 2.5 miles of line laid from Copetown westward, the first impromptu excursion was held. The directors and significant others arrived by carriage along the Governor’s Road to attend. The excursion train was locomotive #4, Niagara. Participants rode in the tender. Several round trips were made over the line and all proceeded to celebrate with food, drink, speeches, and toasts. Rails would be laid to Fairchild Creek and then Harrisburg, a full seven miles, by the end of the week.
July 1853 saw work progressing at full speed, in some locations around the clock, and Sunday alone brought rest. Tracks had been laid out of Hamilton, along the waterfront, for one mile, intersecting the Desjardins Canal. The plan had been to bridge the canal on its old route but, after the expenditures of many hours and a large sum of money, a bridge of permanent structure proved elusive. The canal was described as a “bottomless pit.” Engineers and officers decided to cut a new channel for the canal through the heights and built a beautiful suspension bridge for carriage traffic across this new gorge. The old channel was to be eventually filled to create a solid roadbed.
The route now wound around and started its ascent of the Niagara Escarpment toward Dundas. At Dundas, a gorge approximately six to seven hundred feet long and one hundred feet deep had to be crossed. A masonry culvert costing $70,000 was built to convey water, large embankments were filled, and a bridge was erected over the Flamboro Road. July 1853 saw rails laid thirteen miles to the edge of the Grand River, at which point another excursion was run to Harrisburg followed by dinner at the Sawmill Hotel.
In July 1853 a branch line from the Great Western main line to a wharf on Lake Ontario (named Port Ontario) was under construction. This branch, less than one mile in length, was built to allow contractors to land locomotives, rolling stock, rails, and other materials close to the jobsite. This became the site of the Ontario depot, renamed Winona in 1867. Vessels with a draft of up to ten feet could dock at the wharf. July 25 saw the arrival of the steamer Traveller at 1030 hours. The locomotive Middlesex (#7) and its tender were off-loaded. Track was laid on the wharf, and the locomotive with tender was pulled up the gradient, using rope and tackle, in less than six hours. The steamer Ontario then arrived with a load of rails.
As construction proceeded west after crossing the Grand River, few problems were encountered in this straight stretch. By September 1853 a bridge had been built across Cedar Creek and Mill Street. It comprised five massive stone abutments, each reaching beyond the ordinary high-water mark, which were topped with five timber bents. It was originally planned to construct the entire bridge of stone. However, its massive size and the lack of stone in the area caused a change in plans.
Tuesday, November 1, 1853, was a day for celebration. The Great Western was opening the section between Hamilton and Niagara Falls (Ontario). A train with five cars waited at the Hamilton station. Local dignitaries boarded and the train proceeded east over the section from Hamilton to Ontario (Winona), which had been laid with a new compound rail developed locally. A stop was made at St. Catharines before proceeding over the Welland Canal and up the escarpment. Four miles from the falls, in a deep cut, the locomotive derailed and hit the embankment, becoming submerged in gravel and clay and breaking the centre driver pin. A few passengers detrained and began walking the remaining four miles. Once they arrived at the station, another train was quickly dispatched to bring in the remaining passengers. All marched down to the Clifton House, owned by the contractor Samuel Zimmerman, to partake in a sumptuous feast, with drink, speeches, and toasts. During celebrations a track crew was busy repairing the line for the return trip. In fact, a new track had been laid around the wrecked locomotive.
***
The following are examples of shipping manifests for Great Western-contracted vessels during the construction phase of the main line (month/day/year):
From Cape Vincent, two locomotives (12/22/1852)
From Cape Vincent, two locomotives (Hamilton and Middlesex)(7/22/1853)
From Cape Vincent, two locomotives and tenders (12/9/1853)
From Cape Vincent, one locomotive and tender, three firepans, four pilots, eight castings, three smokestacks, 65 pairs of trucks (12/12/1853)
From Montreal, two locomotives and tenders, one hundred fifty tons of coal, sixty tons of axles, thirty-eight tons of pig iron, one hundred barrels of resin, ten tons of iron pipe (10/11/1854)
From Montreal (three ships): ship number