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It was certainly nippy out today but inside the three stalls it was a good working temperature, you could barely see your breath!
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The TH&B van is still in 'removals' stage as we continued to remove more tongue and groove siding in search of more wood needign replacement in the walls. The west wall is now down to bare steel for ab out 1/3 its length and nearly ready for a coat of rust paint.
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Minor repairs to #7020 are complete and it is parked outside once again. This simple manoeuvre took some time as we needed to park #4803 off the turntable, remove fences, move #7020, shift #4803 back and replace all the fences. All of this outdoor work was lots of fun at -10 C but fortunately there was no wind and lots of sunshine and we even had a small audience.
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We also made excellent progress in the F7 diesel cab. The new sub-floor is better than 75% complete needing only fastenings and two small bits of plywood to finish. As usual, many sundry odd jobs got done. The engine fan assembly off the Pyke was degreased and spruced up and the north end of stall 16 got a needed clean-up and floor sweep. This latter was partly in preparation for a contractor beginning pipe work for our heating system next week.
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Posting by Michael Guy; Photos by Lance Gleich & Stephen Gardiner
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Click on the video below to watch it!
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When the news front is quiet, we occasionally bring your attention to railway-railway related items of interest beyond our own southern Ontario region. Today, we bring you one the finest steam fan videos that we have seen as yet. This ten minute video seems to have been filmed recently even though it seem to be carefully staged to reflect operations of many decades ago. It is of a railfan trip but without a railfan in sight (remarkable!). The filming is absolutely first rate.
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The subject are a pair of magnificent 2-8-4 Berkshire Class steam engines - Pere Marquette #1225 and Nickel Plate Road ## 765 - teaming up to pull a freight train for a historic photographic charter on the Great Lakes Central Railroad, an event organized by Lerro Productions and hosted by the Steam Railroading Institute of Owosso, Michigan.
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If your computer is fairly new you may want to watch in High Definition. To do so (once it is playing), click on the "360" button on the bottom and then choose "720" for High Definition. To watch it in full screen, click on the "YouTube" symbol in the lower right of the image below and play it at YouTube with full screen turned on.
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Posting by Russ Milland
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In an earlier TRHA News Posting, we spoke very briefly (using one of Derek Bole's historic notes) about the Canadian Northern Shops (photos of which are shown above) which still exist in Leaside, Ontario. Derek, TRHA's Historian, now has published a more expansive article on the history of these shops.
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Spacing is an award-winning magazine dedicated to presenting compelling journalism that focuses on the joys, obstacles, and politics of Toronto's urban landscape. The magazine is full of thought-provoking articles presenting an abundance of creative ideas and insightful commentary from the city's brightest young writers and visual artists.
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They also have established a web presence including a daily Blog called Spacing Toronto, which is a hub for daily dispatches from the streets of Toronto to cities around the world, offering both analysis and a forum for discussion. Their contributors examine city hall, architecture, urban planning, public transit, transportation infrastructure and just about anything that involves the public realm of our cities.
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On this blog, their editor posted yesterday the following announcement:
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"Spacing is pleased to again partner with Heritage Toronto on their upcoming Building Storeys exhibit at the Gladstone Hotel that runs from Feb 4 - 27. A collaborative effort by Heritage Toronto and members of the photography groups the Shadow Collective and the DK Photo Group , Building Storeys is a visual documentation and anecdotal exhibit of the citys heritage building and sites. This is the first in a series of posts on Spacing Toronto connected to the exhibit, and is by Derek Boles."
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To read Dereks comprehensive article on the Canadian Northern Railway Eastern Lines Locomotive Shops, click here and scroll down the page a bit.
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Posting and pictures by Russ Milland

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St. Thomas, Ontario is located just south of London, Ontario. Railways have been a significant part of St. Thomas's history since 1856 with the completion of the London and Port Stanley Railway. Since then a total of 26 railways have passed through the town. With its rich rail history, St. Thomas has designated itself the "Railway Capital of Canada".
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The Elgin County Railway Museum was incorporated in 1988 as a registered non-profit charity for the purpose of preserving and restoring the railway heritage of St. Thomas and surrounding area. They are located in the 1913 former Michigan Central Railroad Locomotive Shops next to the Canada Southern Railway which was built in 1872 as a shortcut through Canada from Chicago to New York. They have acquired a fine collection of railway engines and rolling stock as well as other artefacts. They also have restored a signal tower on the site. The site also house a massive Canada Southern Railway Station (see picture at lower right) which is being restored by another organization.
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Each year the museum has held two weekend Rail Heritage events which I have attended and thoroughly enjoyed.
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Until recently, the facility was owned by the CNR and the museum was only a tenant. The facility was not being maintained and the roof had deteriorated dangerously resulting in the closure of most of it to the public. There was a major rail yard outside their facility. But the CNR was beginning to remove the yard resulting in a further threat to the viability of the museum.
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The good news is that the volunteers who run this museum have successfully raised funds for the past few years by holding "Thomas the Tank Engine" events over the past five summers which have been enormously popular with tens of thousands of people turning out. On December 31st, 2009, they had sufficient funds as a result to purchase the building and 15.5 acres of land from Canadian National and Canadian Pacific railways.
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But challenges remain. They still have to buy the rails from the railways from CN at a cost of $99,500. They also need to raise $1.5 million dollars to replace the museum's roof. The roof is complex and consists of a series of 300-lb. (136-kg) concrete slabs suspended from steel beams.
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For more news about the museum, read this article in the St. Thomas Times-Journal by clicking here. For more about the museum, visit their website. The images shown here were taken in August of 2004 at their Iron Horse Festival.
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Posting and Pictures by Russ Milland
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The TRHA offers tours of Union Station on the last Saturday of each month at 11 a.m. Cost is $10 each payable on arrival for the tour. Reservations are not necessary and those interested should meet by the Traveler's Aid counter in the centre of the Great Hall at 10:50 a.m. For more about these tours, click here.

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Turning to the miniature railway Train Depot area, Saturday's work crew addressed the challenge of fitting the turntable bridge. As shown in the pictures, it was all hands on deck in order to carry the miniature railway turntable from stall 16 of the Roundhouse to the turntable pit where we found that it was a wee bit too long to fit! So we quickly re-surveyed the pit concrete to check the centre point and determine the proper length. In these pictures, note also that doors have been fitted to the miniature railway Train Depot thereby protecting it from the elements. We also took the opportunity to work on the addition of a new siding against the north wall of the Train depot as shown in the photographs below.
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On Sunday, a smaller crew continued work on the F7 Cab, the TH&B caboose and the Pyke Crane.
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We designed the miniature railway to support both 7 1/2" and 7 1/4" gauge equipment. So, on Sunday, we also undertook a test trip around the miniature railway with a borrowed 7 1/4" gauge 1 1/2" scale gondola car looking for issues we might have with this slightly smaller gauge of equipment. A few minor issues here and there with track gauge will be easily remedied.
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Posting by Michael Guy; Pictures by Stephen Gardiner, Lance Gleich, Michael Guy & Mike Salisbury
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Things couldn't have gone better this Saturday. We had twelve of us working six separate projects at the same time. The task list included:

• Continued work on the TH&B caboose
• Continued work on the CPR #7020 diesel switcher
• Finishing off the Sweet Creek instructor's seat
• Adding wheels to the miniature railway's turntable
• Building a new siding at the Train Depot
• Test installing the miniature railway's turntable.

Everything on our list for today was crossed off as complete or with good progress made. In Part 2 of this posting, we will share more about the turntable installation and the new siding.
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Posting by Michael Guy; Pictures by Stephen Gardiner, Lance Gleich & Michael Guy
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Derek Boles, TRHA's historian, publishes a daily posting on the Toronto Railway Heritage Yahoo Group List. These postings document major railway oriented events that happened on that day of the year. One of today's items is as follows:
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"January 24, 1995:
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The massive 75-foot high coal and sanding tower at the former Canadian Pacific John Street Roundhouse is moved 600 feet from what is now the corner of Lower Simcoe Street and Bremner Boulevard to the northwest corner of the roundhouse. The silos of the tower were underpinned with steel bracing, and the entire structure was moved on three huge rubber tired trailers. The moving company, ETARCO, claimed this was the heaviest single object ever moved in Canada. The move was necessitated by the southern expansion of the Toronto Convention Centre, which was carried out from 1994 to 1997. Bays 1-11 of the roundhouse were disassembled and later re-erected and occupied by Steam Whistle Brewing. Unfortunately the 360-foot long brick stores building was demolished, losing a potentially valuable asset for the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre. The John Street facility was built between 1928 and 1931 and once comprised 43 structures, of which only three survive: the roundhouse and machine shop, the coaling tower and the water tower."
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The company that moved the tower is now part of Mammoet. They provided us with the images seen here of the actual move. For more information on the move, read our earlier News Post.

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In an earlier News Posting we introduced you to the O. Winston Link museum in Roanoke, Virginia. In this posting we focus on O. Winston Link's work and how he produced these spectacular images.
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The museum displays at any given time several hundred of his images and also wonderfully tells the story of his life and his work. Touring the museum is like walking through a book. It truly takes a few hours to explore despite its modest size. There is also an excellent movie about his life which plays hourly in a several hundred person theatre.
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In this posting we see pictures of a number of his prints. These are "pictures of the prints" that I took so the actual images have even higher quality. Most of his photography was done at night and very carefully planned and staged. He took this approach to allow him total control of the lighting of an image. He developed his own control system to control the simultaneous use of hundreds of flash bulbs to capture a given image. The results were very powerful and dramatic images for which he became quite famous but only decades after he took them.
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As one leaves the museum, the image of O. Winston Link shown at the lower left thanks you for coming. For anyone interested at all in railways and railway history, this beautifully executed museum must be visited. It is so well done that it would appeal to anyone with an interest in great photography and a good biographical story.
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For more information about the museum, visit their website here. The entire collection of images is accessible online. Also note that the museum sells books of his photographs at a very reasonable price. I have two of them and they are excellent.
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Posting by Russ Milland; Images used with permission of the O. Winston Link Museum
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As part of TRHA's efforts to properly equip the Roundhouse workshops we were able to take advantage this week of an offer to acquire a used but very serviceable Anayak vertical milling machine. These photos show its being loaded onto a trailer and its delivery and unloading into the Roundhouse. Thanks to Dave Powell and Eric Motton for bringing the machine to our attention and to Steam Whistle Brewing for the use of a forklift.
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Posting by Michael Guy; Images by Lance Gleich & Arno Martens

Destiny Tours of Guelph, Ontario have, since September of 2008, been operating the "Guelph Junction Express" dinner trains from Guelph to Campbellville, Ontario on the Guelph Junction Railway which is owned by the City of Guelph. Our earlier report on this railway and the dinner train operation can be found here.
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In response to the catastrophe that has befallen Haiti, Destiny Tours has scheduled a special dinner-train excursion to raise money for Haiti Earthquake Relief. This 2.5 hours excursion will include the train ride, dinner onboard and live entertainment provided by local pianist, John Zadro. Due to the generosity of their suppliers, they will be able to donate 100% of the ticket price to this crucial relief effort. This means if they sell all 140 seats on the train they can raise up to $14,000 for Haiti Relief. All funds raised will be forwarded to Doctors Without Borders who are currently on the ground in Haiti. Each purchaser of a ticket will receive a tax receipt for 50% of the price of this excursion from Doctors Without Borders Canada.Tickets are $100 per person.
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The Train will be departing at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, February 6th, 2010. For more information, click here.
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Posting by Russ Milland; Images from Destiny Tours

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One of my favourite books is called the "Victorian Internet" which was written by Tom Standage. Here is an excerpt from the author's website about this book:

"In the nineteenth century there were no televisions, aeroplanes, computers, or spacecraft; neither were there antibiotics, credit cards, microwave ovens, compact discs, or mobile phones.
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There was, however, an Internet.
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During Queen Victoria's reign, a new communications technology was developed that allowed people to communicate almost instantly across great distances, in effect shrinking the world faster and further than ever before. A world-wide communications network whose cables spanned continents and oceans, it revolutionised business practice, gave rise to new forms of crime, and inundated its users with a deluge of information. Romances blossomed over the wires. Secret codes were devised by some users, and cracked by others. The benefits of the network were relentlessly hyped by its advocates, and dismissed by the sceptics. Governments and regulators tried and failed to control the new medium. Attitudes to everything from news gathering to diplomacy had to be completely rethought. Meanwhile, out on the wires, a technological subculture with its own customs and vocabulary was establishing itself. The telegraph unleashed the greatest revolution in communications since the development of the printing press. Modern Internet users are in many ways the heirs of the telegraphic tradition, which means that today we are in a unique position to understand the telegraph - and the telegraph, in turn, can give us a fascinating perspective on the challenges, opportunities and pitfalls of the Internet."
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The telegraphs systems developed at about the same time as development of the railways exploded in the late 1800's and the early 1900's. The natural land route for the poles and wires that carried the telegraph signals was along the railway right of ways. The telegraph provided railways the means of communicating between stations to control traffic. The railways also provided the public with telegraph services.
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For more information about the history of telegraphy, visit this Wikipedia entry.
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The TRHA has begun to acquire telegraphy artefacts. Pictured above are two "sounders" and a "straight" telegraph key recently donated by Dave Best of Kingston, Ontario. Telegraph keys were used to produce the "dots" and "dashes" used in Morse Code to send the characters in a message to others on the network. The Sounder turned the electrical signals into an audible sound to allow the telegraph operator to hear the dots and dashes and write down the message.
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The final picture above shows a third artifact donated by Dave Best to the TRHA. This an indicator head for a switch stand.
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Posting and Pictures by Russ Milland

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For a January day, Saturday turned out bright and sunny and felt like it was at least 18 degrees C. We had a great turnout of volunteers and much was accomplished. Now that we have finished our track construction, we undertook a major cleanup and reorganization of the machine shop area and now have a large clear area to work in. Progress was also made on the ongoing renovation of the TH&B caboose and inside the F7 diesel cab.
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The driving instructor's seat for the Sweet Creek tender was completed and painted black so it almost disappears from view. It quite comfortable with a properly padded seat. The whole assembly has been built as a lift-off unit to allow fast access to the fuel filler cap below. We also painted the miniature railway turntable and the F7 cab doors.
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Earlier in the day we had a visit from Gary, the last operator of the Pyke crane for the Toronto Terminal railways (TTR). We had a great chat and took extensive notes on the controls and idiosyncrasies of the crane.
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Posting by Michael Guy; Pictures by Lance Gleich
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We have featured the famed CNR 4-8-4 Northerns in a number of our news postings as many were produced and many have been preserved across Canada. Our #6213 is, of course, one of these. Less well known are the CPR Northerns. One reason for this is that only two of this class were ever produced.
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One of these is preserved in Ottawa at the Canada Science and Technology Museum. They have a magnificent locomotive hall where a number of large Canadian steam locomotives are preserved. Here is what they say on their website about the CPR 3100 class of locomotives:

"Only two locomotives of this type were built by the C.P.R., and both were preserved, no. 3101 being at Regina. In spite of the many technical innovations in their design including the extensive use of nickel steel, they were not considered an unqualified success. Their great weight proved to be a handicap, and they had difficulty in achieving high speed. However, they were familiar sight for more than 25 years at the head end of the heavy Toronto-Montreal night passenger trains. Both locomotives were converted to oil firing in 1956 and finished their working life in Western Canada. "
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The images above by Russ Milland show this locomotive as displayed in their hall. The picture of CPR 3100 in the Toronto rail yards is shown at the lower left and was found here where there is more information about CPR 3100. The picture of this locomotive in action at the right below is from the CPR Archives.
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Finally, there is a superb movie of the building of CPR 3100 which originated in the CPR archives and is hosted online at a fascinating website called the "Silent Cinema in Quebec" which offers many films for the silent film era. Click here to watch this movie- "Miracle of a Locomotive (9128)".
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Posting by Russ Milland; Pictures as per the attributions above
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Even pictures taken yesterday can be considered historic images. We are fortunate that Norm Betts was hired by State Developments, the developer in charge of the development and management of the Roundhouse property, to chronicle the renovation of the roundhouse in pictures. Norm Betts is a professional photographer who may be known by many of us as one of the founding team which launched the Toronto Sun newspaper after the Telegram folded many years ago. We will from time to time be posting images here from that initiative.
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The pictures in today's posting were taken inside the Roundhouse during the early stages of renovation when there was a lot of dust in the air which in turn produced dramatic images as the sunlight poured through the roundhouse windows.
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Posting by Russ Milland; Pictures by Norm Betts
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In a recent news item, I reported on my visit to the Virginia Museum of Transportation. Within a few blocks of that museum exists a relatively new museum devoted to chronicling the life of O. Winston Link and displaying much of his incredible collection of photographs of railways and railway life. This museum was opened in 2004 shortly after his death. O. Winston Link was a very successful industrial and advertising photographer who had a passion for railways and especially steam engines. He invested $150,000 of his own money in documenting the last days of steam, focusing on the Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W) whose President gave him the "run of the place" allowing him to even have trains started and operated according to his instructions. He also produced and sold audio recordings of these engines in action.
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The O. Winston Link Museum is appropriately housed in Roanoke's former passenger train station. The top floor which is at street level houses a tourist visitor's centre, a museum foyer and the museum's gift shop. At the upper right, we see a picture of a seasonal model railroad display in the main entrance of the station when the station was operational. The main foyer features a number "windows" dramatically presenting a few of his images as shown at the lower left and middle. The middle image is a self portrait of O. Winston Link with his complex photographic setup.
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The main display area of the museum is in the basement of the station where passengers used to congregate to board the trains which arrived at this level. As shown in the lower right image, that trackside wall of the museum is covered by an enormous photograph of an N&W steam engine.
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Posting by Russ Milland; Pictures by Russ Milland
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Despite the nippy -14 degrees Celsius temperatures on Saturday morning, our TRHA folks turned out in force to continue work on a number of projects. One team left to visit a number of possible sources in search of a new radiator for the Pyke Crane. Others worked on the ongoing renovation of the caboose. The very heavy wood stove was swung out of the van with the assistance of Elwell the Crane. Others worked on the renovation of the F7 Diesel Cab. Everyone wrapped up the day by helping shift the 18-foot long miniature railway turntable into stall 15 where it will be painted.
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Posting by Russ Milland; Pictures by Michael Guy, Stephen Gardiner & James Rasor
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In an earlier posting called Roundhouse Park from Above! - Part 1 of 2: Googling It! we introduced you to the Google Maps' satellite view of the Rondhouse Park. Google Map has recently updated their aerial view of the Roundhouse Park area. The images above are the latest views. Note in the close up view at the right, that the Master Park Plan appears almost entirely implemented (see the Park Plan below). The only obviously visible missing part is the green grass to the north of the turntable. This image was likely captured earlier in the fall of 2009.
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In this image, note that we can spot #6213 beside the coaling tower, our CLC Whitcomb and the CP Switcher #7020 on the turntable and the Roundhouse Park buildings in their current locations. The miniature railway right of way is also clearly evident as well as the foundations and walls of the miniature railway depot.
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Posting by Russ Milland; Image by Russ Milland and Google Maps
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It turns out that a lot of folks on the Internet are following progress by the Toronto Railway Historical Association with the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre. This image displays web traffic statistics for our website.
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We should ignore the numbers in the column at the right for "Jan (2010)" as those are only month to date numbers. Looking at the February (2009) through December (2009) statistics, we see that there has been a dramatic growth in folks visiting the site to learn about what we are doing and railway history as well. The mid-year surge in traffic correlates with the exciting move of the CN #6213 steam engine from the CNE to Roundhouse Park.
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The website traffic figure most often used is "hits' (coloured "green" in the chart above) which sums up the number of specifc requests to our website for information. The peak hit rate shown in June was 623,668 "hits per month". If the December "hit rate" was maintained for a whole year, the annual number of "hits" would run almost 3,800,000 "hits per year".
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As we move into an exciting new year for the TRHA and the TRHC, we would like to thank all of the folks out there who have contributed so much of the valuable information and images which we have posted on our website.
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Posting by Russ Milland

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As winter closes in on Toronto and Roundhouse Park, we will look further afield for news of interest to those of us interested in the preservation of railway history and the development of railway museums.
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In November of 2009, James Rasor, one of our TRHA volunteeers attended restoration courses in Kigston, Ontario where he met Stephen Suen, Architect, from Alberta who is trying to help the Hanna, Alberta community put together and fund the restoration of their Hanna Roundhouse. It is pictured above in its current condition. Here is their description of their group and their mission:
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"The Hanna Roundhouse Society is a not-for-profit society working on a project to restore the 1913 Hanna Roundhouse and to gather historical information on rail pioneers from around the area. The Hanna Roundhouse was a Divisional point with the railroad , yet no employee records were kept of the train station, the roundhouse or the Goose Lake Line workers. Restoring Hanna's Roundhouse, researching/displaying local railway and pioneer history, is significant to our heritage. It will honor our railway pioneers and increase tourism to our town and to the surrounding communities.
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If we do not preserve and document railway history with help from our living pioneers, they and the roundhouse will disappear forever. Funds awarded to this project will go towards the purchase of the privately owned Roundhouse property and start the restoration process; install geothermal heating systems and build the Hanna Roundhouse and Cultural Center. This center will support historical displays & educate visitors of our railroad history and support the rail history of our surrounding areas."
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We wish them well in preserving yet one of the dimishing number of roundhouses in Canada. To read more, visit their web page.
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Posting by Russ Milland; Pictures from the "The Hanna Roundhouse Society" web page

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Last October, I had the opportunity to visit the Virginia Museum of Transportation in an ongoing quest to learn from other museums as we plan for the development of the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre.
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This museum first opened its doors in 1963 in Wasena Park along the Roanoke River. However, disaster struck the Museum in 1985, when floodwaters surged through the Museum leaving behind $1.4 million in damages. The Norfolk Southern Railway came to the rescue, generously donating a 1918 vintage Norfolk and Western (N&W) freight station to be used as the Museum's new home. The Museum is now housed in a 45,000 square foot building adjacent to active Norfolk Southern mainline tracks on 5.75 acres of land in downtown Roanoke.
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The image at the upper left is of a poster promoting a "Rail Day" at the museum, an idea which we too could pursue. The museum has an interesting collection of equipment which is listed on their website here. While there are several steam locomotives in the museum's collection, two stand out as they were the pride of the N&W.
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The N&W J Class 4-8-4 streamlined passenger steam locomotive #611 pictured above was claimed to be the most advanced steam locomotive ever built. The J's were built and designed completely by N&W employees, something that was uncommon on American railroads. Only 14 were ever built. This is the only surviving engine. It was restored to operating condition in 1981 and used in excursion service until 1994.
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The second locomotive picture above is the N&W A Class 2-6-6-4 #1218 articulated engine used to do the main freight purpose of the N&W - hauling coal. It too was restored and operated in excursion service from 1987 to 1992.
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In the remaining pictures shown here, we find one of the ubiquitous "video-based" diesel train simulators found in many museums. These have become obsolete to the needs of most railways and many have found homes in museums. The other odd locomotive shown below is an electric locomotive used by the Panama Canal to tow ships through the locks. Finally I found an intriguing poster advertising an event at the museum preceding Halloween. I was unable to find out what sort of terror was to be instilled in visitors to the event!
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The museum is called a transportation museum because they also have a small collection of primarily automobiles and other wheeled vehicles. There is another railway museum located very close to this one that is intriguingly different. That will be the subject of another upcoming news posting.
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Posting and Pictures by Russ Milland
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Here's an interesting photograph from Edward Forbes Bush's book "Engine House and Turntables on Canadian Railways." The only information on this National Archive of Canada image is "Turntable pit mishap, Beaverton, Ontario, n.d." (no date). Beaverton, on the eastern shore of Lake Simcoe, is now located on Canadian National's Bala Sub. 64 miles north of Toronto. The first railway into Beaverton in 1871 was the Midland Railway of Canada.
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The number on the front of the unfortunate locomotive is No. 17. This creates a bit of a research problem since the Midland had two No. 17s as a result of a renumbering in 1874. We will assume that this is the second No. 17, a 4-4-0 built by the Portland Company that same year. This engine was named for Charles Burt. I have no information on who he was although it was common to name locomotives after directors of the line or financial backers.
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The colour illustration by Jack Hill shows Midland No. 15 in somewhat happier circumstances than her sister locomotive. This illustration was prepared for a British book, "Railways of Canada" by O.S. Nock, published in 1973. Although attractive, the image's accuracy is somewhat questionable since it appears to be based on a photograph taken in the 1890s, long after No. 15 had left the system, of an altogether different locomotive at Lindsay. No. 15 was named after Adolph Hugel, who was the president of the Midland.
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According to Ray Corley's Grand Trunk locomotive roster compiled in 1982, Midland Nos. 13, 15 & 17 were sold to the Credit Valley Railway in 1877 so that does provide a time frame for the mishap photograph. Midland No. 15 became CVR No. 2, then Canadian Pacific Railway No. 179 and was scrapped in 1911. Unfortunately the research trail runs cold for No. 17 as it is not listed in Omer Lavallee's CPR locomotive book. Record keeping at the time was much less stringent so No. 17's absorption into the CVR may have actually occurred. If so, it's likely that all three of these engines would have been serviced at the CVR's Parkdale roundhouse. There will be much more about that facility in a later instalment.
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The Midland Railway itself had access to Toronto when it took over the Toronto & Nipissing Railway in 1881 and both railways were absorbed by the Grand Trunk Railway in 1883. However, there was no direct train service between Toronto and Beaverton. The May 1872 timetable reproduced here shows train service between Port Hope and Beaverton. Toronto passengers had to travel a total of 129 miles to reach Beaverton. The situation improved considerably when the Toronto & Nipissing Railway opened in November 1872 and established a junction with the Midland at Lorneville, just north of what is shown as Woodville on the timetable.
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A much more direct route was established when the Canadian Northern Ontario Railway opened between Toronto and Parry Sound in 1906. In the 1920s, Canadian National established a motor car service between Toronto and Beaverton. Storage Battery Car No. 15801 is seen descending the Don Valley in 1922. To the right of it, the Gerrard Street bridge is being rebuilt.
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Motor cars were more economical to operate than conventional steam trains. CN stabled a large variety of them using different technologies throughout their vast system over the years to service lightly traveled or off-peak passenger service. Motor cars based in Toronto ran to Oakville, South Parry, Weston and Hamilton. CN also operated a service between Lindsay, Beaverton and Midland until the late 1950s. There were about 15 storage-battery cars, all of which were retired by the 1940s. The limited range of the batteries proved to be a problem, one that still plagues battery technology today. Other types of self-propelled motor cars operated into the 1950s, when their role was taken over by the much more successful Rail Diesel Cars built by the Budd Company. Even GO Transit tried using self-propelled coaches in its first few years of operation until they were deemed unsuitable for the heavy passenger traffic along the Lakeshore. It's likely that similar cars will be used for the Union Station-Pearson Airport Express when it's finally established.
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As far as Beaverton is concerned, today VIA's Canadian and the ONR's Northlander pass through the town although passenger service ended in 1990 when the ONR's overnight train, the Northland was discontinued in the VIA cuts.
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Posting by Derek Boles, TRHA Historian
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Click on the image for a closer look!
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In my recent article on the history of railfannning, I included an 1858 photograph, probably the earliest image known that shows that activity. The photograph depicted the Artists' Excursion at Tray Run, Maryland in 1858. One of my Christmas gifts to myself was a used copy of Engineer's Witness by Ralph Greenhill, published here in Toronto in 1985.
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One of the images in that book shows the same excursion visiting the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad's roundhouse at Martinsburg, West Virginia in June 1858. The number of well dressed people standing around a working roundhouse indicates that this is an unusual event.
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It is also the earliest photograph I've been able to locate that shows an operating roundhouse. In the foreground can be seen some of the iron triple 'pot' hoppers used by the B&O to transport coal. Locomotive No. 167, right of centre, was a Camel-type 4-6-0 engine, so named because its cab was on top of the boiler. In 1861, the roundhouse was destroyed by the Confederate army during the Civil War.
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Posting by Derek Boles, TRHA Historian

Below are two videos taken of our New Year's Day run on the new TRHA miniature railway.
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The first was taken by Michael Guy.
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The second video captures a complete ride around our track and was taken by Wilson Lau. His videos were edited by Walter Pfefferle to run at twice the actual speed of the train. The complete trip in reality takes over 4 minutes at our line speed which is about the same speed that a jogger can maintain.
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Posting By Russ Milland

Click on each image for a closer look!
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Looking back on 2009, we thought it appropriate to prepare a "Top 10" list of significant milestones for both the TRHA (Toronto Railway Historical Association) and the TRHC (Toronto Railway Heritage Centre). These milestones were chosen to comprehensively cover the many, many milestones, large and small, that marked this year of enormous progress at the THRC. They are listed in chronological order as they were posted in our News "Blog". The accompanying images are numbered to match each milestone. Links to the blog entries are also provided:
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#1: The priceless picture of the Roundhouse Crew in 1931 represents the numerous artefacts donated to the TRHC over the past year. Other donations in 2009 included baggage carts, more images, telegraph equipment and much more. Bob Dickson's sleuthing uncovered this particular gem. Click here for more information.
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#2: Despite that most of our site was an off-limits construction zone during Toronto's Doors Open in May of 2009, TRHA "got creative" and offered rides to the public on a speeder trailer from Bremner Boulevard to the turntable and then into the roundhouse itself with commentary provide by TRHA volunteers. We also, of course, provide a display of historic railway images in Union Station as well as Doors Open and monthly tours of the station. Click here and here and here for more information.
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#3: A TRHA crew worked hard and long beginning in late 2008 to assemble a working steam locomotive, the "Sweet Creek", for our miniature railway. In late June of 2009, we transported it to the Golden Horseshoe Live Steamers railway in Hamilton for its very successful trial run. Click here and here and here for more information.
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#4: In June of 2009, our massive CNR 4-8-4 Northern Locomotive was successfully returned to Roundhouse Park from the CNE Grounds in an exciting overnight journey witnessed by many. In this image we see it happily residing on the last remaining 120 foot turntable in Canada. Click here and here and here for more information.
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#5: In early July of 2009, Leon's, our second tenant in the Roundhouse, held a grand opening for their new store. Here we see Orin Krivel, President of the TRHA, addressing the large audience in attendance. This event provided the TRHC with some terrific publicity. Click here and here for more information.
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#6: In a tribute to the excellence of the Roundhouse restoration project, Don Loucks, heritage architect with IBI Group, was awarded the 2009 Canadian Association of Heritage Professionals (CAHP) award for adaptive reuse of a heritage building for his work on the John Street Roundhouse. In this photo, we not only see the Roundhouse but also the Roundhouse Park property which was significantly redeveloped with many full standard gauge radial tracks being installed in 2009. Click here and here for more information.
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#7: By the end of 2009, the restoration of the Crossing Shack and Cabin D's accompanying tool shed were completed. Most of the exterior restoration work on Cabin D (shown in this image) has also been completed. Don Station has been partially restored as well. Click here and here and here for more information.
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#8: In December of 2009, a book - Toronto's Railway Heritage - with 225 annotated images written by Derek Boles, our TRHA historian, was released for sale. This complemented the extensive publishing of historic articles and brief historic notes on the TRHA website (created by Derek and others) and Derek's daily posts of historic events on each day of the year in the past on the ToRyHeritage Yahoo Group. All of these were major contributions to successfully implementing the TRHA commitment to communicating our railway history to the world. Click here for more information.
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#9: In December of 2009, we successfully moved a Pyke Crane to the roundhouse after it was generously donated by the Toronto Terminal Railways Company who manage the railway trackage in and around Union Station. Here we see some of the TRHA crew involved posing with the crane on the successful completion of the move. Click here and here and here and here for more information.
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#10: We conclude this list with a picture of some of our TRHA crew of volunteers on New Year's Day of 2010 as they celebrated the completion of the miniature railway a few days earlier in late December of 2009. The massive effort of our volunteers throughout 2009 to build this railway is documented in many news posts available in our news archives. Click here for more information on the final completion of the railway on December 29th.
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2009 was in incredible year for the Roundhouse and Roundhouse Park as it was transformed using the Master Park Plan released in 2008.

The TRHA Board would like to thank everyone involved from many different groups - the City of Toronto, our TRHA members, our property developers (property managers, architects and contractors) and Roundhouse tenants. It is the teamwork of all of these groups which has resulted in the successful development of a whole city block into the base for a joint business/museum facility which is perfectly located to serve our public.
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The TRHA wish you all a Happy and Prosperous New Year.
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Posting by Russ Milland; Picture Credits per the original TRHA News postings
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