Monday, July 17, 2023

Tuesday Treasures

  Tom the backroads traveller hosts this weekly meme.


July 2023 - Toronto ON





Destinations across Canada are etched in the stone near the ceiling of the great hall at Union Station.

All places on the north list were then served by CNR.



All places on the south list were then served by CPR (of course, many of the places were on both railways).


This is appropriate because the relevant CNR routes are mostly north of the corresponding CPR routes.
Saint John refers to Saint John, New Brunswick. When Union Station was built, Newfoundland was not yet part of Canada, and the Newfoundland Railway was not owned and operated by Canadian National.
All places in each list are in their actual east-west geographical order, except North Bay / Sarnia and Sault Ste. Marie / Sudbury.
Sault Ste. Marie is misspelled unless that spelling was then considered correct in English.



Some of the two-word place names are hyphenated, which definitely was not normal style then (or now). Others are not.
Centered dots ( · ) are used between place names. Presumably for space reasons, their use at the ends of the lists and where the lists turn corners is inconsistent, and PRINCE · RUPERT is written with a centered dot instead of a hyphen.
As these place names are to represent some of the places people could reach from Union Station, it is ironic that one of those places is Toronto itself.
Of these places, Saint John, Fredericton, Lévis(*), Sherbrooke, Port Arthur (Thunder Bay), Fort William (Thunder Bay), Regina and Moose Jaw are no longer served by VIA Rail, or any other passenger train service.







5 comments:

  1. I was wondering how many of these places listed are still served by trains.
    One of R's sister's name is Marie but pronounced Maria, as was one of R's, Irish born, grandmothers. Actually the cousin today's post is Maria too but she is known as Marry.

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    1. I had that info in the post and removed it, thinking no one would care. Here is an article that will answer that https://transittoronto.ca/regional/2302.shtml.
      Yes, the Irish have a habit of pronouncing Marie or Maire as Marry.

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  2. ...they don't build things like this these days!

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  3. The last time I was in there, the refurbishment hadn't been completed.

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  4. The owner of the moving company might be interested in the staff driving skills.
    I like the Quickstop usage.
    Oh dear, a nice steak spoilt by the accompaniment 😜

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