CNR Steam Whistle by Dean Robinson
CNR Steam Whistle Stratford-Perth Museum
For decades, the best-known sound in Stratford was the railway’s steam whistle that roared at least half a dozen times a day from the roof of the powerhouse near the big railway shop. In the early years, there was a long blast at 6:40 a.m., not a pleasant sound if you were still in bed and scheduled for the day shift.
Seventeen minutes later there was a short blast that sent employees to their work stations. At 7 a.m. it blew again and the workday was officially underway. The noon-hour break was bracketed by blasts at 12 p.m. and 1 p.m., and five hours later the last roar sent everyone home for the night. Later, as shifts were reduced in length, the whistle’s first call came at 7:40 a.m. and its last at 5 p.m. Too, there was a noon-hour warning blast at 12:57 p.m.
The whistle, which stood almost five feet in height, was built in the shops, probably about the time the powerhouse went up in 1908. Fed by a steam line from below, it was operated by an electric clock mechanism that could be overridden manually.
It acted as a fire alarm for the shops and the adjacent yards: six short blasts, each three seconds in duration with three-second intervals, followed by two long blasts, each 15 seconds in length. And, for the city in general, it marked special occasions. Its roar signalled the end of both great wars and the Korean conflict, and was part of each Remembrance Day service. And it customarily blew in each New Year.
When the shops were taken over by the Cooper-Bessemer Corp. the whistle was silenced, thus signifying the end of a major part of Stratford's history. In 1962, John Snider, a Stratford steam fan, bought it for $35 from the salvage company hired to demolish some of the buildings. In 1996, he donated it to the Stratford-Perth Museum, where it remains on permanent display. Source: from Dean Robinson's book Railway Stratford revisited .