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“The Toronto Railway Heritage Centre recently received a valuable donation from John Kendall of Toronto who regularly rides past the roundhouse on his bike and is aware of progress at the museum. The donation consists of the name board and schedule board from the Canadian Pacific Railway Agincourt station. The photograph at the left above shows these two items in the Machine Shop.
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Agincourt station was first established by the CPR in 1884 and was 13 miles northeast of Union Station on the main line to Montreal. As CPR passenger trains dwindled in number during the 1960s, Agincourt became less important as a passenger station. In 1964, CP established Toronto Yard at Agincourt, by this time part of Scarborough. In the early days, the yard was sometimes referred to as Agincourt Yard.
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After 1966, the only passenger trains stopping at the station were the Dayliners for Peterborough and Havelock. These trains would have been serviced at the John Street roundhouse until 1982, then discontinued. VIA revived the service between 1985 and 1990, when they were discontinued once again. There is currently talk of establishing a commuter service along this line. . The last timetable showing the times and train numbers indicated on the schedule board was VIA’s June 17-October 27, 1979 edition. After that date, the trains were renumbered. Of course, all the CP passenger trains that passed by our own Don Station would have also passed by Agincourt, at least until 1969 when the Don Station was moved to Todmorden Mills.
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Our appreciation and thanks to John Kendall, who had the foresight to preserve this aspect of Toronto’s railway heritage long enough to find a suitable home for it.”
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Posting & Picture by Derek Boles, TRHA Historian
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“For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the specific location of the station, it was located on the west side of Brimley Road, just north of Sheppard Avenue. I suspect that it was closed down and demolished in the late 1970’s, as the last person to hold the position of Station Agent at Agincourt was James W. Lahay, who moved to Streetsville to work late in 1974 or early 1975. This would have occurred probably a short time before Agincourt closed. So the station was probably torn down sometime after 1975 unless the section gang used it for a while, which did happen with some smaller stations.
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Just west of Agincourt station at Kennedy Road, the CPR Havelock Subdivisio joined the Belleville Subdivision. Thus both the Belleville and Havelock Subs passed by Agincourt station, a fact that most people, even railroaders, don’t know. There were two train order signals both on steel masts. One was located on the south side of the tracks adjacent to the station wall as shown in the photo by Al Paterson at the above right. The other was located on the north side of the Havelock Subdivision immediately across from the station. Both were controlled by the Operator in the Station. In the pictures below by John Mellow, we find TH&B #71 passing the station in 1970 (left below) and a CPR passenger train passing by in the summer of 1965 (right below)”
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By John Mellow; Pictures by John Mellow and from The Al Paterson Collection
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