15 October 1919

The Angus Shops, in the northeast end of the city, constitute a notable industrial feature in the life of the metropolis. The idea of the concentration which the shops express was in the mind of the executive for years before it was realized. The shops were built according to the policy of concentration which the C.P.R. had adopted for economy, strength, and convenience.

the Angus Shop bulk with a degree of formidability which is actually portentous. They are built upon an immense plateau, high above the regular city level, and cover many acres of ground, on a grand expanse, which, a few years ago, was desolate in the extreme. As one takes the car on the lower level, and is slowly carried upward to the plateau, the shops stand out in tremendous and overwhelming bulk. As the car goes over the top, there is something implacable in the strength and power and unfeelingness of the great works, which supply the vital power to a great railway corporation.

The chimneys belch their suffocating smoke, the machinery roars, the workmen pick up the hot castings and mould them, and, with long tongs, make them into wriggling fiery snakes. There are some 7,000 men and boys working at the Angus Shops. Here you have an ethnological hodge-podge of great human interest. There are probably a dozen nationalities working side by side. Before the war the admixture was more complex. There was a thinning out process, but others, belonging to innocent nationalities, took the places of the belligerent aliens.

The Angus Shops can turn out a dozen freight cars per diem.

A locomotive can be built up in a week. Everything the fabrications require are on the spot. The whole establishment, and the many features that mark it, is self-contained to a remarkable degree. There are many skilled mechanics, but one of the interesting things is the readiness with which unskilled labouring men have been trained to valuable effort. As interesting as this is the patience and loyalty of the men themselves. The shops constitute a world in microcosm. There are diverse racial and religious feelings, there is the sense of strangeness and lack of mutual understanding, and yet there is a certain comradeship and service.

The Irishman is there, and there is a twinkle in the blue eye of him. The swarthy Italian is in evidence, with his soft speech, his melting eye and his nimbleness. The Scandinavian is represented by big types, patient and hard working. The Russian reveals his ox-like strength and stolidity.

All are in mutual relationship, all render mutual help at work, and all do their best, their inarticulate best sometimes, to establish camaraderie.

The machinery employed, the big travelling derricks, the fiery castings, the interrelation of one thing with another, the precise way in which one article becomes the complement of another, these are worthy of note, but the human element fascinates the visitor.

Like Cyclops, the big fellows handle the glowing bars.

The brawny workers lift burdens that would be impossible to half a dozen sedentary creatures in the city.

They work with a will, and, in their total number and capacity, keep the biggest industrial entity in the Dominion going, from coast to coast.

It is not a little moving to note how the men from distant lands have fostered the idea of home in the new environment. They, at first, were unable to provide individual quarters, and could be found in the least desirable parts of the city, huddled together as many as ten men in a room. They have saved money. They have bought bits of ground, and thereon they have built themselves humble dwellings which to them express the endearing name of "home".

If one considers that at the Angus Shops there is not only the big building of locomotives and cars, but that the upholstering, the painting and decorating, that from the big Mogul engine to the most exquisite interior decorations, all are accomplished at the shops, some idea of the magnitude of the enterprise may be gathered.

The mechanic is there with his iron and steel, the painter has his place, the artist paints lovely panelling and ceilings for the sumptuous cars, the delicate fingers of women make and arrange the exquisite silk curtains.

The Angus Shops are the big feature of a big corporation.