Water Tower

Water Tower. ‘Behind You’. The steam locomotives serviced at John Street required vast quantities of water, which was pumped in from Lake Ontario and stored in this 60,000-gallon tower. The height of the tower provided sufficient gravity so that the water could flow through underground piping into standpipes, vertical columns with a rotating spout and a control valve that led the water into the tenders of the locomotives. There were four of those standpipes strategically placed around the engine terminal, two behind you one at Simcoe Street and the other at Bay Street., The fire generated by burning coal in the boiler of the locomotive would heat the water to the boiling point, generating the steam energy required to propel the train, heat the passenger cars, pump enough air to operate all the brakes on the train, and blow the distinctive whistle that characterized the railway age of steam. In an era long before the concept of conserving natural resources was familiar to most people, Canadian Pacific recycled the hot water that was used to washout the locomotive boilers by conserving it in a large tank in the machine shop and then circulating it back into the locomotives without it having to be completely reheated.