Bonus Features

Moncton -- The Railway Artifacts

Valerie: The history of Moncton is inextricably tied to railways that have come and gone and been part of this hub city, the geographic centre of the Maritimes. Brenda Orr is senior heritage officer for Moncton. And is this the oldest piece you’ve got connected to the railway?

Curator: Yes, this is a wonderful schedule box from the Intercolonial Railway and it dates before the turn of the century and all of the local train stations along the Intercolonial Line would have had one of these hanging in the station for people to take a schedule from.

Valerie: Well it’s wonderful to see even that it goes here and there and even to Prince Edward Island the “Garden of the Gulf”.

Curator: The Intercolonial connected the Maritime Provinces to the rest of Canada, I guess you could say.

Valerie: And eventually the Intercolonial merged with any number of, with the Transcontinental and all various ones merged into the CNR.

Curator: All the various lines, the National Transcontinental, the CGR became part of the nucleus of the CN lines in the early 1920s.

Valerie: Well, and the CN shops, as they were called, were a huge part of Moncton and I guess probably the biggest employer.

Curator: Yes, the shops – this is a wonderful collection of photographs of the interior of the shops in Moncton. And the shops were started first on Albert Street in the early 1870s when the railway came to Moncton. And these shops were built in 1906 after the Albert Street shops burned.

Valerie: One of the people who that was actually working in the Antiques Roadshow today was moving the stuff was saying, “You, know, my grandfather is in one of those photographs.” I mean, you couldn’t find someone in Moncton, probably, who wasn’t related to someone in the shops.

Curator: The shops employed an enormous number of people between -- even between 1870 and 1880 the population of Moncton increased by about 5000 people and everybody worked for the railway. And we all have ties, even my grandfather worked as a baggage master at the station so there aren’t too many people that you don’t talk to that didn’t have somebody who did work for the railways.

Valerie: And the shops were there, what – they fixed the trains or… ?

Curator: Yes, they looked after all of the repairs, they also rebuilt locomotives at the shop and it was really the centre for that kind of activity in the Maritimes, for any work that had to be done on any of the rolling stock.

Valerie: Right, just look at the faces of these people and the sun coming through, I mean you wouldn’t get an idea of what it was like in there, you know, unless you were one of those workers, set to be photographed.

Curator: And it was hard labour too. You know, these fellows worked very hard, it wasn’t sort of some of the glamorous jobs on some of the coaches and lines that went through. These guys worked hard and it was very difficult working conditions but they were all very skilled artisans.

Valerie: And then the shops closed which was devastating in Moncton.

Curator: It was. In 1988 the shops closed and you know, we’ve gradually seen a shift in Moncton’s economy…

Valerie: To high tech.

Curator: Exactly, and away from the blue collar industry and the blue collar workers.

Valerie: It’s booming!

Curator: It is, it is booming. And this is a plaque actually that came from the cornerstone of the shops when the shops were demolished in 1990 the cornerstone was opened and this glass plaque was inside the cornerstone. It was hand made by a gentleman by the name of George Harris who worked as a painter for the Intercolonial. And he hand painted this plaque to put into the cornerstone in 1906 when the building was built. And when it was removed they used a jack hammer to take the cornerstone out and unfortunately… you can see how it’s been repaired. But we did manage to find most of the pieces. So it’s a wonderfully unique item from that history of the shop.

Valerie: Yes, almost gone but not quite.

Curator: Exactly.

Valerie: Thank you Brenda.

Curator: You’re welcome.

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