The Siren Board

Canadian Line Materials was located at 3595 St. Clair Avenue East in Scarborough, Ontario, adjacent to the CN railway and midway between Kennedy and Midland. Known as CLM Industries, it was a division of McGraw-Edison ltd. Max McGraw started his company in 1903 and in 1957 bought Thomas Edison Co. forming the McGraw-Edison Co.Ltd. They manufactured electrical equipment and 1950's they were contacted by the Canadian Government to build air raid sirens. Though they might have produced sirens during WW2 but I have yet to fully confirm that. A photo was found of a WW2 British Columbia ARP display that has a siren in it that looks like a CLM. These sirens were adopted from our British cousins sirens during WW2. The sirens had to be dual tone to distinguish the sound from a single tone fire alarm siren which would call firefighters to a station. They were mostly 10/12 port but had other variants like 20/24 and in the 5HP rotational unit, 4/12 . They made various models of sirens, like the 3HP omni directional, 5HP rotational and the 5HP carter look alikes. They came in a number of voltages ranging from single phase 110V to 3 phase 550V. CLM Industries was sold in 1985 to Cooper Industries of Texas and no longer exists. The only thing that remains is the original smoke stack that has CLM imprinted on the side, located at there old facility.

Very Nice Information!

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing

Very cool!

Wow, I’ve seen that chimney countless times while riding the GO Train. Amazing that it was part of the CLM factory!

Hello all
New guy here, looks like I’m in the right place, I just brought home the fire siren from my local station. Our hall is getting demolished to make way for a new hall. The siren stopped working about a year ago so I’ve put myself in charge of restoring it. I don’t have much history on it yet as most of the crew that installed it in the mid ‘60’s are no longer with us. Siren looks like the single phase CLM variant in your pictures, the horizontal nameplate is still slightly legible, it’s 220v 3hp, the vertical one is missing. The breaker was tripping so I’m guessing the motor has shorted. I think the siren was pulled out of Comox airforce station, still trying to confirm that. Would love to get feedback and information on what I’ve got and proper restoration steps.
Thanks
Hippie

Hippie wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 18, 2023 1:48 am

The breaker was tripping so I’m guessing the motor has shorted. I think the siren was pulled out of Comox airforce station, still trying to confirm that. Would love to get feedback and information on what I’ve got and proper restoration steps.
Thanks
Hippie

Welcome to the board! You'll probably want to start a new thread on this, but... In a case like this, where you suspect the motor is shorted, I'd start probing and see if you can confirm or disprove this. You can poke it with a multimeter, but you'll really need a megger to tell if the windings are shorted or not. It may or may not be the issue, but the rest of the project hinges on if the motor is working/repairable. If it is indeed shorted, you'll want to find a motor shop to inspect it. Shorts aren't the only thing that might cause it to pull excessive current, though. Does the siren spin freely by hand? (watch your fingers with those ports!)

Thanks, yes the blades spin freely, not sure what else is in there that might overload it. I'll try posting a new thread like you say and try and add some photos