Fenwick Station gone but memories remain

[Welland Evening Tribune August 1, 1978]

By DOROTHY RUNGELING

One October day in 1966 I drove past the Fenwick station (at least I drove past the site) but the station had disappeared.

Then I recalled that it was put up for sale when the Toronto, Hamilton and Buffalo Railway decided the stop at Fenwick was not necessary any loner. There just wasn’t enough business to warrant this run and so the station building was sold. But how could this possibly be? It had been there too long to suddenly be gone like this.

I had to take a second look to fully realize that it was gone. The site where the old familiar long building once stood was now just a piece of ground.

Immediately my heart did a little flip and nostalgic smells, sounds and sights came flooding to the surface of my memory, which had deeply stored them all these years.

It had been many years since I had entered the station to go on a trip, but I could sense the old excitement which a child feels when going on a train; the look around the waiting room as we entered the door, then walking up to the ticket counter with my parents to purchase  the tickets.

The counter was much too high for a child to see over, but the station agent, JIM ROBERTSON and later HUGH ALSOP, could be plainly heard noisily punching the necessary information on the tickets with a flourish, as he used his big metal stamp.

Then there were the lowered voices of other passengers, making small talk as they waited for the train to arrive; the smell of soot and cinders, a delicious smell because it meant going somewhere; and the crackle of the heating system, a pot-bellied, soft coal burning stove which belched obnoxious gases into the room every once in a while.

It was usually a long wait for the train, simply because we had arrived in plenty of time, but in the meantime, I could listen to the telegraph wires clicking out their mysterious dits and dahs until at last a faint whistle was heard.

A bustle in the waiting room and excitement started to rise again at the thought of getting on the train.

But alas! It was not our train, but one going in the opposite direction. It slowed up and ran past the station at a speed which enabled the station master to convey a written message to the engineer on the train by means of a wooden hoop on which the note was fastened and then held up so the man on the train could pick it off without the train coming to a full stop. Then with a roar of the wheels diminishing in the distance, the waiting started all over again.

ARRIVES AT LAST

At last another whistle and this time we knew it was our train.

Hurrying out on the platform we noticed with approval that the arm on the high pole had been lowered by the station agent to let the train’s engineer know that there were passengers to board his train so he must stop.

This whistle grew louder, but we could not see the train yet as there was a curve in the railroad a half mile up the tracks. Then at last the big black engine loomed into sight, rounding the curve majestically.

As it neared, I covered up my ears lest the noise be too frightening. The big wheels slowed down and came to a squeaky stop as the steam let go with a mighty hiss.

ALL ABOARD

The “all aboard” signal from the conductor, always uttered with a rising inflection was the signal for everyone to get on the train. There was soot and dust on the handrails, but the green plush seats looked inviting as we vied for one with a window to press a nose against.

The whistle blew and the chug-chug of the steam engine soon started the wheels rolling again to take us on our journey with that delicious smell of soot, the sound of wheels clicking over the rail joints, the clacking and rattling of the couplings between cars which heightened as the conductor opened the doors to pass from one car to another; the excitement of new faces to look at and wonder where they were all going. And if our journey happened to be westward, the thrill of the conductor lighting all the lights in the car, which heralded the biggest thrill of all going through the tunnel at Hamilton.

In the tunnel, the darkness surged by us and I wondered if we would ever come out in the sunlight again.

Then there was the arrival of the man with the candy, peanuts, cigarettes and magazines who whizzed through the train as it stopped in Hamilton, and then another load of new faces to wonder about.

So part of the past has now been obliterated. The automobiles and airplanes have taken over the job of transportation and we have been happy about the more modern mode of travel.

But it just took a jolt, such as seeing an old landmark of the countryside disappear, to bring back in a flood, all the memories of what a steam driven train meant to a country child some years ago.