Courtesy Little Currrent-Howland Museum Sheguiandah, Ontario
Little Current Station & Freight Shed

The photo to the left shows the original Little Current Station in the foreground and immediately behind it the Freight Shed.  This photo was most likely taken in the summer of 1913.  The station and freight sheds have been completed, along with the unusual raised passenger platform, however the track work beside the platform has not even been started yet.  The freight shed which was located about a hundred feet east of the station is of the same design as the Espanola freight shed.  According to the 1930 AER plan book the freight shed was a 26 by 52 foot frame structure.  Although it is not clear in the picture, the freight shed was actually behind the passenger platform and had its own platform and track.  The shed track branched off to the north of the station track just past the point where the station track diverged from the team track and ran between the passenger and freight platforms.  In 1930, the plan book indicates that a #9 rigid frog turnout controlled by a low switch stand led to 430.5 feet of 80 pound per yard track. By 1976 the switch stand had been changed to a high stand.  The dimensions of the freight shed platform are not given, however in the plan book it looks to be about twice as long as the building itself.  At one time there was a 6 x 10 foot outhouse to the east of the freight shed.
 

John Morgan  (1976)
Little Current Freight Shed

By 1976, as shown in the second photograph, the freight shed at Little Current had changed drastically.  The height of the building and the roofline is completely different from the 1913 version of the building.  Obviously the original structure was either removed at some time in the past and replaced by the flat roofed shed shown above, or it was completely rebuilt.  It is difficult to say which of these events is the correct one.  The doors on the south wall, although of a different type than those of the original structure are in the correct places.  In Dale Wilson and Gordon Jomini's book, Canadian National and Canadian Pacific in Northern Ontario, Volume 3, on page 2, there is a photo of the Little Current station and freight shed.  Although the freight shed is almost completely hidden behind a pair of AER boxcars, it can be seen that the east wall is windowless.  The photo on the Little Current - General page, taken in 1976 shows a windowless east wall.  However a close examination of a print I had made of the second photo on this page shows that the west wall window arrangement is different between the two versions of the freight shed.  The 1976 version has three evenly spaced 

John Morgan  (1976)
Little Current Freight Shed

windows on the west wall, rather than the four shown in the 1913 photo.  The 1930 dimension of 26 feet for the depth of the structure also does not seem to agree with the apparent depth of the 1976 building as shown on the Little Current - General page.  I leave the reader to draw their own conclusions as to what happened to this building. Perhaps someone reading this page will have information concerning the structure and will be willing to share it with us.

The rather unusual "high ranch" style W.C. shows quite clearly in the picture in Wilson & Jomini.  By 1976 this structure was long gone.  The freight house itself was demolished sometime during the 1980s.