Belleville dedicates CN Yardmen Monument honouring railway workers

The Yardmen’s name has long been taken down from the exterior cladding atop Belleville’s storied hockey arena.

But not forgotten are the unstoppable 50-50-draw fundraising efforts in the 1970s by former Belleville Yardmen workers who raised the $3 million needed to fund, build and open the shiny new hockey barn in 1978.

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At the time, it was the talk of hockey fans seemingly everywhere thanks to its new Olympic-sized ice surface.

Forty-seven years later, a fitting bronze CN Yardmen Monument was dedicated on Tuesday by city officials and CN pensioners at a ceremony just outside the western doors of the Quinte Sports and Wellness Centre overlooking the Moira River.

Pensioners at the dedication gazed at the bronzed depictions of locomotives, a yardman hoisting a lantern