CP's Rugby tower, a rail fanning favourite for decades, is no more.
By Morgan Turney
Many fans of this site will know and recognize CPR's Rugby Tower, located at mile 1.9 on CP's Carberry subdivision, just at the west end of CPR's yards off of McPhillips Street, and behind the McPhillips Street Station casino.
Built in 1947 to replace the original wooden structure, Rugby Tower was decommissioned as a control structure for CP trains in and out of Winnipeg on June 1, 2013 and remained standing, but empty. It was a two-story brick building with its' prominent "Rugby" name engraved into the brick and featured a distinctive windsock on a pole that indicated wind direction in case of a hazardous chemical spill in the yards.
On a recent railfanning visit one evening last week to Stanley Knowles Park, which overlooks CP's Weston yards and shops, I noticed that something didn't seem right with the view. That's when I noticed that Rugby Tower was no more! It's gone. Not a brick in sight - only a square of stones where the foundation used to be. Yet another piece of rail history gone forever.
Here's a recent image taken by Morgan Turney of where the Rugby Tower used to stand, taken at almost the same angle as the image above the article. It's ver sad to see that it's not there anymore!
My dad took me to that tower in the 1950s. He was a signal maintainer and I was about 11 yo/
ReplyDeleteI worked as an interlocking rail traffic controller there in the late ‘90s. It was an interesting job! Sad indeed to see another piece of railway history gone forever. It was the last RTC position to remain in Winnipeg after a consolidation to Calgary in around 1997-98. I guess the role here was automated and probably now controlled from there.
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