Just as the Toronto Railway Historical Association sought to establish a railway museum in the John Street Roundhouse after its formation in 2001, we naturally required a collection of railway artifacts to go with it. Many North American railway museums began by amassing a collection and then struggled to find the means to stabilize and restore their artifacts. In part, this was the result of the rapidity with which the steam paradigm faded. In their haste to save something of their own heritage, the railway companies donated hundreds of locomotives and pieces of rolling stock to relatively unprepared groups. The rail heritage community is still struggling with this legacy, and, sadly, many irreplaceable artifacts have been irreparably damaged or lost as a consequence.
Through a combination of intention and circumstance, the TRHA and TRM have sought to manage our collection without overextending our resources. Regardless of this intention, we have also recognized the reality of the limited space our museum occupies. While the machine shop at the southwest corner of the roundhouse was originally promised to the TRHA for museum purposes, we have unfortunately been limited to only three stalls of the John Street Roundhouse. Most of our equipment can be viewed freely by the public in Roundhouse Park, the rest in a handful of displays inside Cabin D or the stalls. However, a significant amount of our collection remains in storage due to these space limitations. To ensure all items in our collection can be viewed by the public, we intend to catalogue their histories on this website.
See Our Collections…
By clicking the links below, you will find webpages on each of the items in our collection. These include a wide variety of historical railway structures and equipment.