Experience a day at the John Street Roundhouse in the 1960s, courtesy of Historian Derek Boles’ photo records from a teenage visit in 1966. To clarify, this post was originally published on the TRHA blog in 2009, and has been updated.
A Day on the Rails
One day at the John Street Roundhouse in 1966, April 8 to be exact, Derek made his first extended visit to Toronto with his parents.
“I was 16 at the time and lived and had grown up in Montreal. I had passed through the city before on my way to visit my grandparents who lived in Fort Erie but this was my first overnight stay in Toronto. We stayed at the Royal York Hotel which, at the time, was owned by the Canadian Pacific Railway.
The first night, after dinner, I crossed Front Street to check out Union Station. Railway security was very different 43 years ago and I was able to wander up through the trainshed and across the yards to John Street where I took these photographs.”
John Street in the 1960s
The decline of the John Street Roundhouse began in the 1950s and 1960s. This was due to the process of dieselization that was sweeping across Toronto, and the country. Consequently, preference shifted away from steam locomotion.
The Roundhouse was in use 24 hours a day, 7 days a week until the 1960s when diesel locomotives began to fully replace steam locomotives, eventually closing in 1986. In the early 1980s, John Street was mainly responsible for maintaining business cars, road switchers, and trailers. The yard and car shops remained open until 1988; at the time of the closure, there were approximately 30 people working on the site. The John Street Roundhouse saw thousands of skilled workers throughout it’s almost 60 years of operation.
In the Yard that Day
What Goes Around
“What I find most amusing about these images is that I completely forgot about them and my 1966 visit to John Street until I came across the photographs a few years ago, long after I became involved with the TRHA. Little did I know I would be back here some forty years after I had taken these images.”
Derek Boles’ Legacy
Derek Boles was instrumental in making the Toronto Railway Museum happen. From 2001 to 2021 he worked as a Director and Chief Historian of the Toronto Railway Historical Association. Moreover, he worked intensely with the core development team and served as the second President of the TRHA. His greatest contribution was as chief historian where he contributed immensely to the building of our knowledge of Toronto and Canadian railway history which he and the TRHA have distributed through many different channels. His discipline and insistence on “getting the facts right” when publishing railway history ensured that the history was reliable and credible. Above all, he provided great leadership to a younger group of railway historians who have emerged in the past decade or two.
Derek’s Collection
Derek has written numerous published articles on topics in Canadian railway history. The Toronto Railway Museum holds these articles as part of its collection and would like to digitize these pieces so they can be shared with railway and history enthusiasts around the world. If you would like to support this project, please visit our donation page and consider making a donation. Thank you!
Thank you, very much for sharing this history of Derek Boles.
He was a gem!
I had the privilige of being with him on a tour of the Toronto station, perhaps 18 yrs ago.
He was a very nice man
I miss him
Val Croswell – North Bay
The man standing on the footboard of 7059 (first John Street diesel) is Cy East long-time yard engineer in Toronto Terminals Division. .
His name was Cy East? Interesting!
I remember reading Derek’s regular and very interesting write-ups on historical moments in the life of Canada’s railways online, and I really missed them when they stopped coming a few years ago. I also remember a tour of Union Station he led around 20 years ago which was absolutely fascinating. He was indeed a precious asset to the Museum.