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Canada Day is this coming Tuesday, July 1. For the third year, the Toronto Railway Historical Association will be hosting an open house in the Don Station at Todmorden Mills Heritage Museum and Arts Centre from 12 NOON to 4 PM. As many of you are aware, the station is not often open to the public.
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The Canadian Pacific Railway opened Don Station in 1896. The station was originally located on the west bank of the Don River south of Queen Street. In 1906 the Canadian Northern Railway began using Don, as did their successor Canadian National after World War I. After World War II, Don declined in importance as a passenger station although it continued to issue train orders for both CP and CN trains until the station was closed in 1967. In 1969 the Don Station was moved to the Todmorden Museum. Preparations are currently underway to move the station to the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre at Roundhouse Park.
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Our special guest this year will be John Mellow, who was an operator at the station in the 1960's. I had found at the station in 2006 a faded colour photograph of an operator at Don taken in the mid-1960s showing only the back of the operator’s head. This was included in an article I published in called "The Canadian Pacific Railway in the Don Valley." Once the article was published, I learned on the CP SIG Association's Yahoo discussion group from Keith Hopkin that the photo was taken by the late Dave More in August 1965 and that the operator in the picture was John Mellow. Last year, John joined us and we staged the picture in the upper right to recreate the original scene. John continues to work with the TRHA to restore and interpret the building.

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TRHA President Orin Krivel will also be in attendance. TRHA Historian Derek Boles has prepared a display of sixty photographs depicting the history of railways in the Don Valley as well as some other facilities so as to give the little station some context.
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Information on Todmorden and directions on how to get there can be found at:
http://www.toronto.ca/todmorden/about.htm

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by Derek Boles, TRHA

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The Peter Witt's were the first electric streetcars used by the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). Peter Witt #2300 was built by Canadian Car and Foundry in Montreal and was the first Peter Witt built for the TTC. It was introduced into service in 1921. Peter Witts were in daily service with the TTC until April of 1963.
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After it ended its service, #2300 was acquired by the Canadian Railway Historical Association (http://www.exporail.org/). It was regauged to railway standard gauge (4 foot 8 1/2 inch) from the TTC's 4 foot 10 7/8 inch gauge. It was to be restored by a dedicated volunteer in Toronto who unfortunately passed away at a young age. #2300 was stored in the John St. Roundhouse for many years.
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With the need to clear the roundhouse in order to renovate it, efforts to relocate #2300 to a new site and to establish a local restoration effort at the current time failed and the CRHA decided to bring this historic trolley back to their Canadian National Railway Museum in St. Constance, Quebec.
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On Wednesday, June 11th, #2300 finally left John St bound for its home at the Canadian Railway Museum near Montreal. A crew of volunteers from CRHA Delson, the Halton Radial Railway Museum and the TRHA built a track ramp up to truck height and rolled the car aboard using the CLC-W locomotive to push it up the hill. The entire job took two full days to accomplish. In the pictures above, The shrink wrapped #2300 is seen being loaded onto a flatbed tractor-trailer and moved by highway back to near its birthplace in Montreal.
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For pictures of the TTC's Peter Witt's in service, visit this webpage: http://transit.toronto.on.ca/streetcar/4709.shtml
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In our next post, we will see a Peter Witt in action!
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Text by Russ Milland; Photos by Tom Jankowski

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Last Saturday was saw more progress at the Roundhouse.

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One of our volunteers, James, is in charge of the project to set up the boxcar to hold many of the museum's assets while the roundhouse is renovated. He writes: "Both tables are up, the first wood shelf is up, the metal shelf is up, and, thanks to Dave, both lights are working. Next week we can start to move the tools, paints, etc., into the boxcar. Lionel and Bob (last week) had the good idea of cataloguing the items in the box car as we reload it and store them for safe moving; it`s easy to do." The middle photo above shows the progress of this work.
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Other work last Saturday included salvaging the hardware from the old posts used for holding the locomotive doors open. Some of these were installed for stall doors one to twelve in poured concrete bases and have rotted away. New posts in new properly designed bases are to be installed for all doors.
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We also spend some time shunting engines #1 and #7020 around on the turntable while looking for the source of some noise from the tables centre bearing. In the picture at the left above, Lionel is acting as the brakeman for this work.

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Our pool of volunteer work crews have been invaluable in helping us work with the organizations restoring the roundhouse. Part of our group turned out last Saturday and are show in the picture at the right above. They are from left to right: Michael, James, Lionel, Jason, Wilson and Dave.
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The help these folks plus the many others who come out on other days is deeply appreciated by the museum, the City of Toronto and the TRHA. If you would like to help out, click on http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/TRHA/ to join the TRHA Online Discussion Group on Yahoo where the dates and times of our work sessions and other information about TRHA activities are posted. All you need to participate is enthusiasm, a hard hat and safety shoes.
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By Michael Guy, TRHA; Photos by Michael Guy