"The Great Chase"

As most people who worked at Bathurst St. know, a lot of the yard was a reclaimed and filled in area, that used to be Lake Ont, and that the Yard Office used to be a Grand Trunk Station, at one time but moved from another location, not far away, and in fact the Railway Clock was a Grand Trunk clock.

The Yard was not far above lake level, and the yard, was low in relation to the area around it, as can be seen by the accompanying photo, in fact about twenty five feet lower, than Front St.

One quiet night, about three in the morning, screeching tires could be heard, followed by a big crash, as a car smashed through the fence, at the bottom of Portland St. that runs along Front St. designed, and put in place to prevent just that sort of thing, into the North Side Yard twenty five feet below.

The guy stumbles out of his car, clothes askew, covered in blood and starts running all through the yard like a maniac, the Cops were called, the search was on and all movement in the Yard was stopped, so as not to kill this guy.

In the mean time a young, new Car Checker, Wayne H., was out checking a train, as he was told to do, when all of a sudden this wild man looking like a Banshee jumps out from between two cars covered in blood, and screaming, almost landing on Wayne, and we are told Wayne fainted on the spot, [who can blame him].

By this time all movement in the yard had stopped, and a half dozen Cops had arrived and most people not otherwise engaged were looking for this wild man, including another Car Checker, Daniel M., who was a rather big good natured guy.

The gate crasher comes around the corner of a rail car running towards, Dan who makes a tackle that should have put him in the CFL [Canadian Football League] Hall of Fame,

Dan has the guy on the ground, kicking screaming, cursing, and swearing, not realizing that Dan was just some working schmuck, he was venting pretty wildly at the cops, calling them everything in the book, nostrils flared, and spit coming out with every word, you dirty rotten fucking, sons of bitches, prrrrricks.

At some point the Cops decide they better take over from Dan, which they do, and they haul the guy away, arranging for a tow truck to get his car out of the Yard.

It seems the guy was a drunken sailor, who thought he was going to miss his boat, which I guess he did.

Danny got an honorable mention in the Newspaper the next day either the Toronto Star, or the Toronto Telegram, I'm not sure which, but this was the kind of story preferred by the Tely.

The accompanying photo shows about where the guy would have gone through the fence, as Portland St. comes down to Front St. on the right of those twelve houses on the edge of the photo.

Allan