This engine is on display outside the facility in the parking lot. Once you pay your ticket, you cross the streetcar track and are confronted by the new building. It's quite a nice building and a great addition to the site. I took many photos in the building but they are all fairly dark and not quite blog-worthy. Here's one:
We went for a ride on their miniature railway:
This engine is not yet on display:
They have a nice little station there:
My son Nick was very excited about the LRC engine they just acquired:
CP 7077 is nicely painted:
Well worth the visit: www.exporail.org
1 comment:
Central Ontario Railway & Technical Trades Association
c/o 3736 5th Line East, RR#3 Campbellford, Ontario K0L 1L0
(705) 653-9967 fifthlinepress@aol.com
March 8, 2011
Subject: Peterborough and our college for the skilled trades.
Dear Sir,
Thought you might take an interest in our project for increasing performance of the CPR Havelock-Peterborough rail system by integrating with current operations a college for the skilled trades. We are ready to move this project forward and need your help.
Innovative in nature, traditional in function, beneficial to all levels of the community, here is an essential description:
Revitalize the CPR Havelock – Peterborough rail line, adding shops and foundry to train in traditional mechanical craft and trades, museum facilities, and operate restored heritage locomotives.
Recover, restore, return to service and display the fleet of approximately 58 heritage steam locomotives in parks across Canada.
Conduct research into alternative fuels and technologies for transportation.
Provide a forum to research and develop technologies and strategies for domestic and international high speed rail to serve the coming century.
Continue and improve existing business on the rail line, preserve and expand employment, bolster regional tourism, heritage and economic development.
Recovering, restoring and putting into service the steam fleet, preserves and displays a tremendous historical legacy and provides opportunity for training a new generation of Canadian craftspeople. We intend to mix classic mechanical and foundry trades with leading edge training and study engineering, railway operating, management and communication trades.
Still dynamic today, Canadian railways opened the country to settlement, stabilized employment, and provided market access for farm and industrial development. When diesel came to Canadian rail in 1958, Canadian National Railways had more than a thousand steam locomotives and, in a gesture celebrating both progress and heritage, donated a number of these engines as monuments for parks across Canada. A good idea at the time, but the locomotives did not age well and, rusted out, asbestos filled, are facing critical questions concerning their survival.
The locomotives have undergone two interesting transformations; from industrial junk to high-craft Canadian heritage sculpture and from operating by a wealthy crown corporation to care a parks and recreation department which cannot afford upkeep.
Confidence in this proposal is high as there is much we know: Peterborough, both city and county are an ideal venue with well developed labour, technology and tourism bases, the rail line is profitable, still serving the Nephton mines. The locomotives and trades associated with them served for more than a century and we build, arguably, the best colleges in the world.
The Central Ontario Railway & Traditional Trades Association is a non-profit organization and we’ve recently asked The Queen’s University School of Business to assist us in formalizing the business plan.
We need your help better understanding how to maximize the benefits of this project for people across Canada and how you might be able to help.
Take a moment to share with us your views and share this with your friends.
Peter Wilson
Board Member
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