James Street incline railway changed the city — and face of Hamilton’s escarpment
Imagine it's the late 1800s and a crowd of people and maybe a horse or two are riding up the escarpment on the Hamilton and Barton Incline Railway.
It takes only 75-seconds to make the 213-metre journey. But, one of the riders feels a sneeze coming on and reaches into a pocket for a handkerchief.
Unknown to him, there is a one cent coin caught in the hanky and it gets catapulted over the railing to land on the ground 20 metres below.
Over the years, through rain, snow and erosion, it sinks into the soil. Grass and weeds grow over it.
Then one day - many decades after the incline was shut down and demolished - a guy with a metal detector hears a beeping sound from the unit. Mike Relics" Guarascia zeroes in on the spot where the noise is loudest, digs in with a small shovel, and finds the lost currency just beneath the surface.
How did the coin get there? Did it fall out of someone's pocket in the haste to contain a sneeze? No one knows. But it's one story to explain dozens of old coins that Guarascia has found over the past few years in the shadow of where the incline railway used to operate.
His collection also include pocket knives, an old lipstick from a century ago, an antique luggage tag, a skeleton key and some antique children's toys. They're not all from the 40-year era when the incline operated, but coins with dates from the late 1800s and early 1900s probably are.
This week is the 130th anniversary of the opening of the incline on June 11, 1892. So, I thought I'd take a look at what can be found from those bygone days of escarpment rail and try to imagine what used to be there.
And one of the best people to help explore the area is Guarascia, who is host of the Cable 14 television program Dirt Fishing" that takes viewers on metal detecting expeditions in various places in the Hamilton area.
The James Street incline site, which can be accessed from the James Mountain Road near Aberdeen, is a favourite spot for him, as is the area around the former Mount Hamilton Incline Railway (1895-1936), that used to run along a similar pathway to where the Wentworth steps are today.
I like to search both incline railways. But the James incline is the one I fell in love with because the remnants are still there, and I find it very peaceful," he says.
By remnants he means a series of support bases that are still standing a few metres west of the James Street stairs. They look like well worn tombstones leading up a hill.
At the top of the escarpment in Southam Park is a historic plaque that explains the story of the railway. There's a second plaque about the Mountain View Hotel that was first constructed at the site in the 1850s. It later featured a pavilion for roller skating and dancing. The James Street incline greatly improved business but sales plunged after the Ontario Temperance Act in 1916 put a prohibition on the sale of alcohol in Ontario.
The property was taken over by William Southam, who is known for having owned The Spectator and starting the Southam chain of newspapers across Canada. After a period as the Wentworth Hunt Club, the building was demolished in 1937, five years after the closing of the incline railway. Since 1943 the grounds have been used as a city park.
Another person who has taken a lot of interest in the Hamilton's incline railways is Tom Luton, who runs an extensive website called Hamilton Transit History."
After the James Street incline opened in the 1890s it allowed for the first wave of suburbanization on the top of the mountain. Before that, getting up the hill was not that easy, especially with a horse and cart," he says. It made travelling up the escarpment fairly painless. And it started a bit of building boom."
His website talks about opening day at the Hamilton and Barton Incline Railway: Starting at around 2 p.m., large crowds began to gather at both stations. A preliminary run was made with 50 people at 2:45 p.m., with the official first car carrying city and company officials at 3 p.m., taking 75 seconds for the trip up.
The HBIR then opened for service, and thousands of people rode the HBIR that afternoon. The first day's operations were marred by foaming in the boiler, prompting an early shutdown of operations at 5 p.m. The boiler was cleaned out, and service resumed on June 13 with no problems."
Luton says through the 1920s roadway accesses up the Mountain were expanded, and people didn't use the incline railways nearly as much. They preferred automobiles.
Once those roads got smoothed out and paved, I think the incline era was pretty much doomed."
The Hamilton and Barton Incline Railway
- It connected Hamilton to Barton Township, which is the reason for its name. The service was also known as the The James Street Incline."
- It had two, 10-ton cars on a 213-metre track at a 31-per-cent grade. It stretched from the top of James Street South to Caledonia Road (that later became Upper James Street).
- June 11, 1892 was the official opening of the HBIR that ran six days per week from 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.
- May, 1932: After a period of financial problems, the service shut down permanently.
- 1942: The track was dismantled so the metal could be used for the Second World War effort.
- 1947: The stations at each end were dismantled.
To see a film clip of the incline railway in operation, go to: bit.ly/3mcvJhU