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VIA Rail advised us this week that they had five teak railway benches for sale as surplus to their needs. We have acquired two of these benches for the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre. One of these will be used in Don Station as one of the original benches is no longer there.
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Posting by Russ; Pictures by Lance Gleich

Wikepedia is an incredible experiment on the Internet. It was designed to allow anyone to go in and help build an encyclopaedia on the Internet. Anyone can make an entry and everyone else reviews those entries and can change them if they have more information or more correct information. We often turn to Wikipedia to provide you with more information on railway related news as there is a lot of railway related information on Wikipedia. Wikipedia has been so successfuul that it now has 3,180,000 articles in the English language alone.
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We have now launched an "article" (as each entry is known on Wikipedia) for the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre. You may read the article here. We and perhaps others will be working to grow the article and add to the information about our evolving museum.
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Posting by Russ Milland

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Thomas Blampied first came to our attention when he offered us the use of a picture he took of the TRHA's Pyke Crane in action. I then became aware of his railway images at photopic.com on the Internet. I was very impressed with the very professional quality of his photography. I then noticed that he had a link to a book that he self-published electronically on the Internet using an on-demand publishing service. This is an exciting new way for an author to publish a book without having to heavily invest up front in a large print run. Intrigued by the quality of the sample pages on the publishing website, I bought a copy online. This triggered the publishing service to use their automated computers to print a single copy and then mail it to me so that I received it a week or so after ordering it.
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I followed up with Thomas for more information about the book and he advised me as follows:
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"I actually started the project last year while I was studying in the United Kingdom. I found that there was a lack of books on GTA (Greater Toronto Area) railways (especially contemporary). I felt that it would be a good idea if there was a record for historians and enthusiasts to look back on in a few decades time. The photos themselves were taken over a period of about six years and the book itself took about one year from first draft to final publication in June 2009.
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For me, the most interesting part is how the book's theme of change has been so apparent already. I look at my photos of the GO Bathurst Yard, the CP Oshawa Yard and even the GO yard at Whitby and changes are apparent even in my one year away! I wonder what other locations in the book might look like in the future?
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It was a challenge to come up with favourite photos (most of the book is favourite photos and the first draft was double the size) so I have chosen a variety of shots showing historical events or interesting trains. I hope that you like them."
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The book is a softcover 80 page book printed on very high quality paper and includes 86 colour photographs and 2 in black and white for dramatic effcet. Thomas has included textual introductions to each section and has extensively captioned each photogrpah to explain them. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and recommend it to others. While its cost may at first seem high at about $40.00 including shipping to Canada, one must remember that this is self-published using an on-demand publishing facility which is currently more expensive than a book printed in a large volume run. For the serious railfan, the cost is quite affordable to my mind.
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Included here are a number of images from the book as follows (from the upper left):
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• Rail of the GTA - Book Cover
• 1st Revenue Producing run of the new GO MP40 with EMD FP9 #560 along as insurance
• New GO MPI MP40 #610 running through Whitby towarsd Oshawa
• CN EMD GP9's #7082 and #4102 pulling a Scale Test Car at Whitby
• ONR EMD GP38-2 #1805 pulling the Northlander into Union Station with a GO Bilevel car destined for the ONR paint shops
• The TRHA Whitcomb #1 beside the John St. Roundhouse
  

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You can view Thomas gallery of great railway imagesby clicking here. at To learn more about the book and view sample pages, click here.

Posting by Russ Milland; Images by Thomas Blampied
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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:

"February 2, 1927:
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Canadian National Railway opens the Toronto Locomotive and Car Facilities, more popularly known as the Spadina Roundhouse. The new facilities were part of the massive railway redevelopment taking place in the 1920s in conjunction with the new Union Station and elevated waterfront viaduct. Much to the delight of train enthusiasts, the Spadina Avenue bridge crossed over the engine terminal, providing an easily accessible vantage point for three generations of rail photographers. The facilities included a 36-s tall engine house with a 100-foot turntable and a coach yard accommodating 275 passenger cars. Construction was carried out by Anglin-Norcross, who would later build the CPR John Street facilities.
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The Spadina site was first occupied by the Ontario, Simcoe & Huron and Grand Trunk Railways in the 1850s. A few years later, the GTR built a fully enclosed roundhouse and turntable which, as it turned out, was not to be the first domed structure on the site. Spadina remained CN's principal passenger facility in Toronto and was taken over by VIA Rail in 1978. The facilities were closed in 1986 after VIA relocated to Mimico and Skydome now occupies the site."
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If you wish to read these daily postings from Derek, simply join the Yahoo Group by clicking here.
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In the pictures here of the roundhouse and its immediate surroundings, we find the following images starting at the upper left image:
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• May 5th, 1956: CNR #6401 4-8-4 Northern in the service area beside the roundhouse
• January, 1966: CNR 4-8-4 Northern #6167 inside the roundhouse
• July 14th, 1985: FP-9 #6506 inside the roundhouse
• January, 1966: Inside the Spadina Shop attached to the roundhouse
• May 20th, 1985: Spadina Roundhouse's Wheel Shop and gantry crane
• May 30th, 1985: Back ends of LRC's inside the roundhouse
  

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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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