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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