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Merry Xmas, Season's Greetings and Happy New Year!
 Click on the image for a closer look!
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The Toronto Railway Historical Association's Board of Directors wishes all our supporters a Merry Christmas, Season's Greetings and a Very Prosperous New Year. We especially extend our felicitations to those volunteers who have worked so hard to make the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre a reality. Undoubtedly 2009 is the most optimistic New Year in the 20+ years that so many have tried to establish a railway museum at the Roundhouse.
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The very best to you all!!
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Those who are fans of the Christmas classic "It's a Wonderful Life" will find a few references to that film in the image above.
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Image: "It's a Wonderful Christmas" - Copyright by Paul Landry/Greenwich Workshop
Further Progress on "Baby D" and the Watchman's Shanty!
 
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On December 23rd, Orin Krivel, Glenn Garwood, John Mellow, Don Loucks and Derek Boles visited Murison Restoration in Oakville. Tom Murison specializes in the restoration of heritage buildings and is responsible for the four wooden structures being restored for the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre. These include the Don Station, the Cabin D interlocking tower, the Cabin D tool shed (sometimes known as "Baby D") and the watchman's shanty.
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The latter two structures were moved to Oakville and inside the Murison workshop so that restoration can be carried out over the winter months. As much as possible, original materials are being used but much new wood is required as all four buildings are well over 100 years old and have received minimal maintenance in the last several decades.
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The pictures above provide highlights of what the group experienced:
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1. TRHC heritage consultant Don Loucks and Orin Krivel inspect the watchman's shanty.
2. Tom Murison, Don Loucks and Orin Krivel discuss the restoration of the watchman's shanty. Notice the beautiful new cedar ceiling installed by Murison Restoration.
3. Orin and Tom inspect one of the windows restored for the rounded turret on the Don Station.
4. Some of the window frames restored for the watchman's shanty.
5. Tom uses wood strips to demonstrate how the floor of the Don Station will be restored given the haphazard job that was used to separate the building at its original location south of Queen Street in 1969 to prepare for the move to Todmorden.
6. Tom demonstrates the contraption he built for the painting and staining of the hundreds of shingles that will be attached to the outside of these structures.
7. The side of the Cabin D tool shed originally located west of Bathurst Street. In stripping the building, Tom has determined that the structure caught fire on at least four different occasions over the years.
8. The restored and varnished floor inside the watchman's shanty. The stains on the lower half of the floor are from the TRHA gang tramping through the structure soon after crossing a snowy parking lot.
Photos and story by Derek Boles
Pre-Christmas Work Party!
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. On Saturday, December 20th, seven TRHA volunteers came to help us whittle down a lengthy task list of items we hope to complete before year end. It was a balmy -13C outside but sunny which brought the temperature inside the 3 stalls space up about ten degrees, not too bad to work in. Elwell-the-Crane was a bit sulky at first as some problem has developed in the cranking motor system so we had to hand-crank it to start the engine. The good news is that you can do this and it did start. . The day was very successful. Given the great team turnout, we completed the bulk of the heavy work on the list. All the miniature rail is now stored in stall 15 where it can stay for a long time. We finally did a solid count of the amount of rail that we have acquired and discovered we have 4700 feet of rail. That is enough to do 2350 feet of track, comfortably more than we theoretically need. . Story by Michael Guy; Picture by James Gardiner
From the Archives - TH&B GP-9's on the Turntable!
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. Derek Boles recently acquired on eBay an original colour slide showing two Toronto, Hamilton & Buffalo GP-9s at John St. in 1958. . This is the first time that he's ever seen photos of these units on our turntable. Numbers 401 and 403 were two of three GP-9's delivered to the TH&B by General Motors in 1954. They were purchased to replace the two Hudson steam locomotives that the TH&B had acquired from majority owner New York Central in 1948 to haul heavy passenger trains between Buffalo and Toronto. . Until 1957, there were four trains a day in each direction with sleepers for Boston, New York, Cleveland and Pittsburgh. By 1964, this was down to one overnight train a day, which was replaced by an RDC day train in 1970. Numbers 401 to 403 were then reassigned to freight service. Passenger service was discontinued altogether over the TH&B route in 1981 and replaced by the Amtrak Maple Leaf, which operates over CN track between Toronto and Niagara Falls. . The three GP-9s were each fitted with four air tanks on the roof and were known as "Torpedo Tube Geeps." They were pooled with New York Central diesel power between Toronto and Buffalo. Ironically and unwittingly they were given the same numbers as some of the provincial highways that would replace many passenger trains during the period these units were in service. The TH&B Geeps operated in pairs when pulling long passenger trains and both could just fit on John Street's 120-foot turntable, as seen in the photograph. After the TH&B was taken over by Canadian Pacific in 1987, all three units were remanufactured and continue to operate as CP Rail Numbers numbers 1688 to 1690. .
The TH&B Railway is commemorated at the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre by TH&B caboose Number 70 and, of course, by TRHC No. 1, painted in the same colours as the GP-9s above.
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Story and Picture from Derek Boles, TRHA Historian
Restoration of the Watchman's Shanty begins!
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The Watchman's Shanty was typical of shanties which often were perched on poles and sat 15 to 20 feet in the air. They are one of my favourite railway structures. Our shanty is now safely located in the Oakville workshop of Tom Murison who has the contract to move the structures into place in Roundhouse Park and restore them.
The attached photos, taken earlier this week, show some of the restoration under way. The floor is prefinished but not laid since they are still using ladders inside the building. The windows are being restored and they have shingles dried and ready to go in their other shop in Dundas, Ontario.
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Story by Russ Milland; Photos by Tom Murison
Putting Don Station Back Together Again!
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Yesterday, Don Station was reassembled on its new foundation. It will now undergo a repair and restoration process over the next few months. In the pictures above, we see the assembly in progress and note that Cabin D has yet to be placed onto its foundations.
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Text by Russ Milland; Photos by James Brown
Don Station Awaits Re-assembly!
   Click on each picture for a closer look!. In these pictures we see the six parts of Don Station awaiting reassembly and restoration their having been successfully moved to Roundhouse Park. In the upper left photo, we find the turret and roof cap, more popularly known as a "witches' hat" looking forlorn in the park. In the middle photo, we find the two roof sections waiting beside our TRHC No. 1 locomotive. Finally in the right hand photo we get an "inside" view of the two halves of the Don Station. On the left is the waiting room. On the right is the baggage section and ticket office. The permanent foundation is between the sections, with the turret going on the upper right in the northwest corner, the same alignment the station had in its original location at Queen St. . Text and Photos by Derek Boles
Acquiring Miniature Rail for Roundhouse Park - Part 2 of 2!
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. On Thursday, December 11th, the rail was delivered on a trailer and unloaded by a TRHA team onto the grounds behind the Roundhouse. . Then, on Saturday, December 13th, a rail moving crew consisting of four teams of two TRHA volunteers each worked with one man at each end of a rail section. The exact weight remains to be calculated but at the nominal quantity of ten tons, we each moved a ton and a half of steel this morning and still made it home in time for brunch. A job well done! . On Sunday, two of us addressed the task of dealing with some curved and bent pieces of rail, completing the job of properly storing the rail.
. Text by Michael Guy; Photos by Lance Gleich
Acquiring Miniature Rail for Roundhouse Park - Part 1 of 2!
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. Early in the fall of 2008, the TRHA was made aware of a supply of small size rail suitable for use in the building of our miniature railway in Roundhouse Park. So we made the trek to Brantford to visit the recycling company who were offering this rail for sale. The recycler had a fascinating collection of old engines and other recyclables which captured our interest as well including a crop dusting airplane as shown in the picture at the above left. . However, we finally focused on the task in hand and examined the rail. As shown in the other two pictures the rail was in good shape and consisted of a roughly equal quantity of 1 1/2" high (8 pounds per yard) rail and 2" high (10 pounds per yard) rail. The rail was formerly used by the Conklin amusement ride company. Subsequent to the visit, we agreed to purchase the rail at an attractive price. . Text and Photos by Russ Milland
Don Station Completes the Journey to Roundhouse Park!
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. The historic Don Station was moved early on the morning of December 10, 2008 from Todmorden Mills to its permanent home at the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre at Roundhouse Park. . The structure was divided into six sections to facilitate the move. The lower part of the station was separated from the roof and divided into two segments that were loaded onto flatbed trailers and began their 8-kilometre journey under police escort close to midnight, arriving at Roundhouse Park in exactly 59 minutes. . The route followed was: . East on Pottery Rd. South on Broadview Avenue West on Danforth Avenue & Bloor Street South on Queen's Park and University Avenue West on Front Street South on Blue Jays Way East on Bremner Avenue . The divided roof, two sections on one trailer, was moved in a second trip. The turret and the turret roof had been delivered to Roundhouse Park earlier on December 9th. . The Don Station was built by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1896 and was originally located just south of Queen Street on the west side of the Don River. The station remained in service until 1967 and was moved to the Todmorden Mills Museum in 1969. For the past two decades the station was used as a storage facility and was usually inaccessible to the public. Beginning in 2005, the Toronto Railway Historical Association hosted an open house and archival display at the station on selected weekends. . The segments of the station are now resting at Roundhouse Park and will be soon be reassembled on a permanent concrete foundation that was prepared several weeks ago. Following its almost forty-year sojourn at Todmorden, some of the floor joists were badly rotted and will be rebuilt with new materials. The structure was divided along seams that separated it for its original 1969 move, so no additional structural damage was sustained in the 2008 move. . The Don Station is the only remaining 19th century railway station in Toronto, the last of 75 that once existed within the present city limits. The station will be completely restored beginning in the spring of 2009 and will be one of the centrepieces of the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre, along with the 1896 Cabin D interlocking tower and Canadian National steam locomotive No. 6213. . Text by Derek Boles; Photos by Norm Betts
Model Train Manufacturer on the Right Track!
 "Love affair with troubled Turbo Train turns into a successful niche business". These are the headlines as longtime TRHA board member, Jason Shron, was in the news recently, on the front page of the Toronto Star's Business section. Jason is the proprietor of Rapido Trains, which since its founding in 2003 has evolved into one of the most successful model railroad manufacturers in North America. Jason also used his artistic skills to help redesign Roundhouse Park for the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre. . Click here to read the article!. Click here to visit Rapido Trains!. Text by Derek Boles; Photo Courtesy of the Toronto Star
Many Teams at Work This Weekend!
   Click on each picture to get a closer look!. . We had a great day Saturday with four teams working at once!
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As seen in the picture at left, Richard and Lance seemed to be having fun, properly harnessed and hatted, high atop the scissor lift continuing with the salvage of light fixtures in Leon's space. In the middle picture, Richard shows no fear of heights! The view of the roundhouse space is impressive as seen in the photo at right of stalls 28 through 32.
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Bob and myself went outside and were successful in starting the CLC Whitcomb"s front engine and then getting a decent charge into the batteries.
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Thanks to our landlord, State Building Group, we now enjoy enough electric heat in the machine shop space to make it warm enough that gloves and coats are not required.
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Text and Photos by Michael Guy
Connecting the Turntable to the Roundhouse!
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. Work continues on the area between the turntable and the roundhouse. In the picture at left, we find Mike building the re-bar skeleton for the concrete foundation to support the new pit rim safety fence. In the middle picture, we see the new "sock" encased drainage line that is being placed along the roundhouse's north foundation. In the photo at right, we see a "stone slinger" being used to place 3/4" clear limestone chips around the drainage line. . Text and Photos by Michael Guy
Preparation of Don Station for its Move Continues!
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As we can see in these pictures, workers have now raised Don Station onto wooden cribs in preparation for its imminent move to Roundhouse Park. They have also cut it into two pieces for the move as is evident in the picture at the left above. When it was moved to its present location at Todmorden Mills, it was brought there in two pieces. Note in the middle picture that there will some challenging restoration work on the subfloor which has suffered some serious rot.
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Text by Russ Milland; Photos by Dave Wetherald
A Busy Weekend at the Roundhouse!
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. On Saturday, we formed two work crews to tackle jobs both inside and outside the roundhouse. The indoor crew donned harnesses and went up in a scissor lift to salvage a number of original light fixtures with shades and glass globes. These were planned to remain in place above Leon's foyer but we think they will be better appreciated as working fixtures in the museum. This project ceased after only eight fixtures were moved when the lift ran out of battery power but we will continue another day. The outdoor crew moved a number of heavy items away from the corner Cabin D used to occupy. This area is soon to be a construction zone for Leon's loading dock. Items moved were the two big stone wooden-wheel assembly jigs weighing well over a tonne apiece (picture at left above), two large compressed-air receiver tanks (middle picture), a smaller tank, miscellaneous large air pipes and a lot of the 1926 embankment fence (picture at the right). On Sunday, three of us returned to finish off removal of the heavy fence parts, three of which were locked in place by a small tree than had grown up between the fence verticals. A small chain saw took care of that. After lunch we made a side-trip to retrieve parts from our F7 Diesel Cab which had temporarily been stored in Hamilton. We now have the cab doors, seats, brake stand etc stored in the roundhouse against the day we convert the cab into a train simulator. If anyone reading this can positively identify the use of the two stone wheels we would be pleased to hear from you. They do not appear to be flour-mill stones. Text by Michael Guy; Photos by Wilson Lau & Michael Guy
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