Editor's note: To read Part 1, click here.
The readers. Without them, there would be no point to gathering these stories of old Barrie. My hope is that the readers find joy in reminiscing or are surprised by a tale about some of our more colourful characters.
Last week, we took a look at tragic episode in the history of manufacturing in this city. That story was inspired by a reader and it came with a question. I had no doubt that another reader held the answer.
A boiler explosion at the Barrie Tanning Company took the lives of two workmen and put the business out of commission for a short while. The question surrounded an innovative solution used to get the factory up and running again.
Did the steam locomotive used to replace the destroyed boiler become a permanent working part of the tannery? The answer could very well have been a simple yes or no but I received so much more.
Les Mavor is a retired. During his years working in finance, most of it in the Barrie area, he made many connections in the rail industry and came away with a great love for anything to do with that industry.
Les is a wealth of local railway knowledge but is quick to add that there are others like him around who could add much more, or could correct minor errors in his recollections. He is fine with that.
To the question, the short answer is no but there is so much more and it surprised me. Of all the steam engines that ran through this town over the years, the one that was chosen to keep the tannery going is likely very familiar to many of you. I had no idea.
In 1957, the year of the accident, a steam engine was an easy thing to obtain as most had been deemed obsolete and were waiting to be scrapped. The tannery incident saved this particular engine from that fate.
This engine was none other than 1531. To those who may have missed the era when 1531 sat just across from Centennial Park, this piece of railway equipment eventually became very important to the people of Barrie.
Number 1531 stood as a monument to the countless railway workers of Barrie and Allandale who laboured here for a century and more.
She was a bit of a cat with nine lives, it turns out. Engine 1531 was rewarded for her tannery service by being exiled to a rail siding near Dyment’s Pond where too many of her visitors were vandals.
After a decade in that spot, 1531 was looking rather sad and missing a number of her original accessories. Levers, gauges, valves and her bell had been spirited away. Robbed and rusting, she was rescued once again by fate.
In 1967, as Canada prepared to celebrate one hundred years as a nation, centennial committees sprang up everywhere. Barrie’s Centennial Park was born from a wish to leave a permanent and useful reminder of this occasion. As the city park committee got to work, another committee was making big plans to restore 1531 and relocate her.
Engine 1531 was installed on the west side of Lakeshore Drive well ahead of Centennial Park’s opening day. She was repainted and her stolen bell recovered.
Unfortunately, as Les notes, vandals found 1531 again. Some folks advocated for her removal to a scrap yard somewhere, but this cat still had a few lives to use.
The Friends of 1531 group was formed during a meeting at the Dorian Parker Centre in the early 1980s. Their aim was to to restore the display cosmetically, improve security, and investigate the feasibility of putting her back into operable condition.
Of course, not all of those tasks were achievable but the group succeeded in returning 1531 to a thing of beauty. In hopes of keeping the engine safe, a fence was added.
For 43 years, 1531 stood as a point of interest on this site. She was relocated to the Simcoe County Museum in 2010, as Lakeshore Drive was undergoing major road construction, and it is there that she remains.
Each week, the Barrie Historical Archive provides BarrieToday readers with a glimpse of the city’s past. This unique column features photos and stories from years gone by and is sure to appeal to the historian in each of us.
