Toronto Railway Heritage Centre Update

Petition signed!

I've been to Toronto on several occasions since the late '80s and have been impressed at the progress you have been making. My first view was from the top of the CN tower while they were building the base of the Sky Dome. Then it was an apparently derelict site, but in later years had tantalising views of some large engines inside. Visited the Steam Whistle brewery on my last visit (2006 I think) and the park lands had really taken shape.

Amazed to see a Saxby & Farmer frame in your Cabin - or 'box as we'd call it, but of course much of the early railway developments were based on UK technologies.

Keep on chipping away - big business can't always just be seen to be getting away with it!

 

Thanks for the support (and to any/all who sign the petition). It's been all change in the park since 2006, everything has changed so much, the only thing you'd recognize is the building itself and the interior of Steam Whistle. Hopefully we can make some headway with Hydro and continue on with our good work of building a museum that we can be proud of here in Toronto.

And the lever frame for Cabin D was imported from England. It is my understanding that many Canadian towers had frames made in the UK as there wasn't a local firm with the experience to build such specialized pieces of equipment.

 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays all, it's been a while since i've posted an update. We've been busy at the Toronto Railway Museum, i haven't been down as much of late because of other commitments and my day job, but i was down yesterday for our big year end delivery.

The Toronto Railway Museum is now the proud owner of the former Canadian Pacific Railway car "Nova Scotia", built in 1896 as the Dominion Atlantic Railway Pullman Car "Sans Pareil". This car has a very interesting history, including being a survivor of the 1917 Halifax Explosion, in which the car provided shelter to a DAR general Manager and his family. Following the explosion, the GM was able to go up the line and telegraph for aid having survived in the pullman car. After being disposed of by the CPR, the fully wooden car was purchased by the Upper Canada Railway Society as their private car for railfan trips. As such, the Toronto Railway Museum now owns both former UCRS Parlour Cars, the Nova Scotia and its successor, Cape Race.

The Nova Scotia was until recently, a part of the Ossawippi Express Restaurant in Orillia, about 1.5 hours north of Toronto. The restaurant has closed, and the railway cars have been dispersed or scrapped based on condition. Two were donated to museums, the Nova Scotia to the TRM and a London & Port Stanley interurban car to the Halton County Radial Railway, a streetcar museum. Three cars have been moved to Port McNicol to be used again as a restaurant at the development where the Keewatin was returned to earlier this year.

As seems to be our lot in life, we picked the day after the first significant (10+ cm) snowfall to hit Toronto in almost 2 years (600+ days) for the unloading operation, which means cold limbs, feet and snow shoveling for all!!! It also meant lots of shuffling as to get the Nova Scotia inside, we had to take out both the U33C and F7 simulator cabs from the stalls to make space within Stall 16!

When i arrived sharp at 8am, the Anderson Haulage crew was already starting to get ready:



The crew getting the ramp ready to take the car off the float. Because of the wooden frame, it couldn't be craned off the trucks like most cars when moved by road in North America, so this was a rare move for us, delivering a car by rail, and with the wooden frame, it needed to be delicately moved:


At the end of the day, the Nova Scotia is inside stall 16, ready to thaw out and for us to perform a complete assessment of its condition.



Because of its use as a restaurant, the interior condition of Nova Scotia is actually in very good, though non-original condition, as it was used as the reception area, bar, office and washroom for the restaurant, though the exterior as can be seen has seen better days and will need work to maintain condition before the funds are in place to allow a restoration to occur. Work will be on conservation until after the Toronto Hamilton and Buffalo Caboose 70 is complete, which should happen this year as it is now being re-assembled with new lumber installed. I will sometime in the next couple of weeks get some updated photos of the Caboose and post an update on where it is and the status of the restoration.

A full set of photos from yesterday when i wasn't busy being brakeman for our rail movement: Flickr: Archive of Stephen Gardiner's photostream: Taken on 27th December 2012

Cheers

Stephen

 

Good to see another classic car being saved - thanks guys over there in Toronto , well done . Will look forward to the restoration story over time . We have car British Columbia at the WCRA - she is restored & sits in our new Roundhouse

 

Martin,

There are pictures of the car late in its life as a DAR business car and one shot in UCRS Excursion use on the DAR Wiki site on the car:
DARSANSPAREIL - DARwiki

I don't know how much of the window framing remains as the wall patterns of the car as it has been at the restaurant are quite different from the pictures, but i suspect our long term aim will be to return it to it's final condition as the DAR/UCRS Business Car as can be seen on the site above.

-Stephen

 

The lowloader in use looks to be a lot longer than anything we would use over here for a similar move.
Any idea why this is so?

 

As far as i know, a combination of need to get the height as low as possible and weight loading issues. The Nova Scotia is give or take 60 tons aparently and the size of the truck was required to meet weight restrictions on the delivery route, while also meeting height limits. Because of the length of the car, the size of truck used was required to get the weight loading down and meet the height restrictions. The float type trailer used allows for heavy weight but low axle loading, and getting the load as close to the road and below overhead restrictions for the move.