It’s winter and there is smoke and steam and coal everywhere. Must have been a hell of a place to work!
Photo courtesy of Canada Science & Technology Museum
PostArctica
Not going gently into that good night at the blog formerly known as Walking Turcot Yards
PostArctica 
Enjoyed looking through your site today. Trains and winter intrigue me, arousing some sort of primal satisfaction in my soul.
blessings,
Shirley Buxton
http://www.writenow.wordpress.com
Turcot roundhouse was not such a bad place to work. I never did but knew folks who did. As a teen-ager in the 50’s I often wandered around the circle looking at the steam locomotives in their stalls. The coal smoke was dirty but not all that noxious, and was liberally mixed with steam, damp but not dirty. Smokestacks above the locomotive chimneys at each stall took the smoke out and above. Hundreds of men worked their whole careers there (plus women in non-traditional jobs during World War 2), and thrived.
Thanks, Lorne.
Ken, what’s also interesting about this photo is the Imperial Oil tank car (their reporting mark was IOX) on the right side.