Click on the images for a closer look!
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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. Two of today’s items are as follows:

“August 17, 1927:
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The clock from the center tower of the 1873 Union Station is removed prior to demolition of the building and presented to the people of Huntsville, Ontario for installation in the Town Hall where it survives to this day. The new Union Station had opened a week earlier. The 100-foot high clock tower was long a prominent feature on the Toronto waterfront, which lapped up just south of the station when it first opened. An observation gallery below the clock was a popular vantage point for Torontonians to view the city and the lake. Over time, the waterfront moved further south and the clock tower was obscured by the 1890’s rebuilding of Union Station.”
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This clock was featured in an earlier TRHA News item: Artefacts At Work – “It Just Keeps On Ticking”.
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“August 17, 1962:
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The Upper Canada Railway Society charters TTC Peter Witt car No. 2300 for a three hour circuit of car lines in the west end of the city. No. 2300 was part of the first order of streetcars delivered to the newly formed Toronto Transportation Commission in 1921. In 1951, 2300 became the Commission’s official training car and was withdrawn from revenue service. The car was shipped to the Canadian Railway Museum in 1963 and returned to Toronto in 1974 for possible use as a “tour tram.” When this plan did not ma terialize due to the necessity of costly repairs, the car was displayed at the CRHA Toronto Railway Museum at Harbourfront. When that museum dispersed its collection, 2300 was moved to the CP John Street roundhouse. Following unsuccessful efforts to preserve 2300 in Toronto, the car was returned to Montreal in June 2008.”
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The move of the Witt streetcar to Montreal was featured in earlier TRHA News items as follows: “TTC’s first Peter Witt Streetcar Leaves the Roundhouse! “ and ‘The Canadian Railway Museum – Toronto Opens in 1975”.
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The Peter Witts which are preserved and operational at the Halton County Radial Railway Museum were also featured in these news items – Click here and here.
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If you wish to read the daily postings from Derek, simply join the Toronto Railway Heritage Yahoo Group List by clicking here.
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Posting by Russ Milland; 1873 Union Station Image from Toronto Public Archives; Peter Witt image by Dan Garcia