The Pyke Crane was donated to the Toronto Railway Museum by the Toronto Terminal Railways (TTR). It had not been in use for several years by the TTR. Many hours of work were invested to return it to operating condition by teams of TRHA volunteers.

History

Often it has been difficult to find pictures of our equipment in operation. In the case of the Pyke crane, we are fortunate to have access to several pictures of it at work in the rail corridor in downtown Toronto. In the first picture by Dan Dell’Unto, we find Toronto Terminal Railway (TTR) employees at work on a switch east of Union Station in October of 2005. The second picture (also by Dan) shows the crane parked among maintenance of way equipment just east of Union Station in April of 2007. Dan notes that he almost always saw the crane paired with an old CP friction-bearing flatcar TTR (formerly CP 302839). In the third image below by Gene Burles, we find a similar Pyke crane owned by Go Transit at work removing the Strachan Avenue crossing tower in December of 1984.