Canadian Preservation News

ONTARIO

CN 6714 arrives at Halton County Radial Railway Museum

As reported last month, CN Electric 6714 has arrived at the Halton County Radial Railway Museum after she was moved from the Connecticut Trolley Museum. Halton County Radial has shared numerous photos on their facebook page of the unit's arrival at the Museum. The move required three different transport trucks to bring it up from the States. 6714 was moved on November 12th to Halton County, where she was mated to her railway trucks and was moved (for the first time since 2006) by HCRR's Oshawa Railways Steeple Cab Electric Locomotive No. 18 (Baldwin/Westinghouse, 1918), assisted by Hartford Electric Light Co. 1 (GE, 25T, GE, 1949). See River Rail Photo's facebook post here for all the details: https://www.facebook.com/RiverRailPhoto/posts/pfbid0pgg3hC1Uoseii9upmLXtVQ1yf6VzHTgKkNga3noDPv7v93NNSGEtvWzxAQjXxcaGl

VIA Rail station in Alexandria undergoing stabilization work

The former Grand Trunk/CN, now VIA Rail, station in Alexandria, Ontario is undergoing major stabilization work. The station currently serves as a stop for VIA's Ottawa-Montreal line. It became a federally designated Heritage Railway Station 1994, offering protection against demolition.

Thereview.ca explains that the station, built in 1916/1917 is undergoing roof replacement, some small foundation repairs, brick repointing and replacement. The work is scheduled for completion by the end of November 2023 and will not alter the heritage features of the station. Photo above showing a Corridor train at the station in 2011, by flickr user Michael Nugent, CC-by-SA.

American Preservation News

MICHIGAN

D.B. Harrington locomotive restoration

Part of the Port Huron Museums collection, the DB Harrington is a narrow-gauge steam locomotive built in 1878 by Porter, Bell & Co. of Pittsburgh. It was used in lumber camps in the Thumb-area of Michigan until moving up toward Cadillac and Traverse City, working as a stationary boiler at a cherry cannery, before being put on display at the factory until the early 1930s. It then was loaned to the City of Traverse City, who put it on display at Clinch Park. The loco was later used as an attraction at Cedar Point in Ohio (starting in 1965, until 1974), then went to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan in 1981, until it was finally donated to the City of Port Huron in early 1990s.

The steamer is now on display at the Wrigley Center in downtown Port Huron, after undergoing a cosmetic restoration that started around 2018. As reported in the Port Huron Times Herald on February 10, 2023, the project involved "(t)he addition of the wooden cab and final lettering on the Harrington's tender, as well as the stovepipe-like jacketing around the boiler of the locomotive and the wooden running boards and triangular cow-catcher slated to go along its sides and front, respectively." Prior to arrival at the Wrigley, the locomotive was kept at "St. Clair County Community College's campus, where it's been in a maintenance garage for the last several years."

The official ribbon cutting ceremony took place on November 21, 2023, with an event held at the Wrigley Center in Port Huron, from 4-6pm. Shown above is a photo of the Harrington, when it was used as a stationary boiler at the cannery in the 1920s. See a full history of the locomotive here: https://cplerr.weebly.com/the-last-of-michigans-logging-engines.html

ILLINOIS

Monticello Railway Museum acquires CN E9A No. 102

From their Facebook page, we learn that the Monticello Railway Museum in Monticello, Illinois, has acquired "Canadian National E9A No. 102. Built in January 1950 for the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway as No. 9940A, the locomotive was generously donated to the museum by Canadian National Railway Company. No. 102 arrived at the museum on Saturday, November 4th and will be evaluated by volunteer mechanical forces as time permits. To learn more about this iconic locomotive, visit https://www.mrym.org/cn-102 ." Further details were not shared at this time.

Museum Vignettes

It wouldn't be Christmas without mentioning the Polar Express. Shown here is Pere Marquette 1225, lettered as the Polar Express during a run in December 2004. 1225 (yes that's her real number!) served as the model for the locomotive used in the book (and the movie). She survives at the Steam Railroad Institute in Owosso, Michigan. The locomotive is also registered on the National Register of Historic Places in the USA. The author visited the locomotive the year before Covid; the tour guide rather blandly put that it the locomotive has no special association with Christmas and that the locomotive's number simply means it came after unit 1224 and before unit 1226… Photo by Stephen Wilder on Wikimedia Commons, CC-by-SA.

Snowy day at the Toronto Railway Museum, showing the Roundhouse in the background. Pike crane from the TTR (Toronto Terminal Railways) and CP switcher. Taken by the editor, February 25, 2023.

Model train shop and steam locomotive in Hamburg NY. Locomotive #4483 was built in May of 1923 by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Eddystone, Pennsylvania for the Pennsylvania RR, #259 of a lot of 475, c/n 56534. This "Decapod" is the last one in existence of the "I-1s" class, of which 598 were built. Shown next to the former Erie RR depot, now a model train shop. Taken on December 24, 2012, by Flickr user Mark Hogan. CC-by-SA photo.

VIA Woodstock Station, shown on a snowy Christmas Eve, December 24, 2016. The station was built in 1885 by the Grand Trunk Railway. Taken by Adam Moss, Wikimedia Commons. CC-by-SA photo

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