One of our missions as the Toronto Railway Historical Association and the Toronto Railway Museum to to research, interpret and share the history of railways.

There is a railway roundhouse in  London, Ontario that was built in the late 1800’s for the Great Western Railway but ceased to be a railway roundhouse around 1900. But it remains in existence today after being used for many different purpose since 1900.

Most recently, it was the premises for the Great Western Steak House who have now gone out of business.  It is now being redeveloped to house two businesses.  Click here to visit the website for the London Roundhouse Project where Shawn Adamsson who works for one of the businesses moving into the Roundhouse shares his research in to the history of the Roundhouse.

Ryan Hunt of London, Ontario has also undertaken a research project to find out more about the history of this roundhouse and is “crowdsourcing” the research effort bu engaging the public to help him. To this end he has:

• Produced a YouTube video (see above)
• Built a Facebook page (click here) “that functions as an interactive timeline for the London Roundhouse”
• Described his project in a posting on his blog (click here) .. a fascinating read!

This is a fascinating research adventure which could be a model for our museum’s future research adventures.

Posting by Russ Milland

Click on each image for a closer look!