Major Thinning of the Exporail Collection

A fascinating, and unexpected, document just issued by the Canadian Railway Museum (CRM, aka Exporail) in Delson-St. Constant, Quebec, just appeared on the Heritage Rail Alliance news feed. CRM has completed a two-year review of its collection and has decided to deaccess 40 pieces of rolling stock. This includes no fewer than eight steam engines; five internal-combustion pieces; seven freight cars; and eight passenger cars. The list also includes 11 pieces of traction equipment, all of them on the PNAERC roster.

CRM's deaccession document is thin on information about the equipment, but it seems very well thought out and their transparency about the process is laudable. They're offering the deaccessed equipment "for exchange, transfer or sale until June 1st, 2025," and they include a prioritization calendar:

December 2024, offered to Canadian railway museums

January 2025, also offered to Canadian museums of other types

February 2025, also offered to Canadian historical associations and government entities

March 2025, also offered to U.S. railway museums

April 2025, also offered to U.S. government entities

May 2025, also offered to other U.S. enterprises

The breakdown of this prioritization timetable seems quite reasonable to me, and I commend CRM on announcing it clearly at the start of the process.

Of course, my interest here is not in Pacifics and Mikados, it's in the traction pieces. I'll confess that I have less familiarity with the CRM collection than I do with any other major traction collection on the continent. It's by far the largest traction museum I've never visited in person. But it's clear that quite a few of the pieces being deaccessed are complete and of real historical significance, so I hope they find good homes.

The first piece on the list is New Brunswick Power 82, a single-truck deck-roof car built by Ottawa in 1906. This is the only carbody on the list of traction equipment - everything else is complete, or at least largely so. This is a unique piece: it ran its whole career in Saint John, NB, and was still a hand-brake car when retired around 1947. I believe it's the only preserved electric car from New Brunswick. It's on some sort of single-truck shop truck and appears to be in nice cosmetic condition.

Next up is Montreal Tramways 1317, a wood-bodied, single-ended PAYE car constructed in 1913 by Ottawa. This car is complete and appears from photos to be in decent, if tired, condition. CORRECTION: I had previously written that this piece was duplicated in the CRM collection by car 1339, but that's not accurate. Car 1317 is actually the only surviving member of the 1200-1324 series, which was the first car design built for the newly unified Montreal Tramways system in 1913. Car 1339 is part of the 1325-1524 series, which was very similar but had an arched roof rather than the railroad roof of the 1200-series cars.

The other Montreal streetcar on the list is Montreal Tramways 1953. This, too, is a duplicate in the CRM collection, and was built as part of the same order as MTC 1959, the museum's most regularly operated streetcar. These cars are single-ended arch-roof cars built in 1928 by Canadian Car & Foundry. Car 1953 was privately owned for many years after retirement and didn't come to CRM until 1975. It's missing seats and some other parts.

Half of the six non-revenue pieces from Montreal Tramways preserved at CRM are on the list, and the first is MTC 5001, an angular steeplecab built in the company shops in 1917. It's virtually identical to MTC 5002, preserved at Branford and currently undergoing restoration work.

The next piece is Montreal Tramways 3151, a single-ended cab-on-flat work motor built by Canadian Car & Foundry in 1925. From the above photo, it appears to be largely intact but in rough shape, and it doesn't seem to have been the focus of much attention in recent years. (Incidentally, the above photo - taken by my father on a trip to CRM in 2002 - seems to be just about the only photo anyone has taken of MTC 3151 in the last few decades. This photo even appears on CRM's own deaccession document!)

Toronto Transportation Commission TP10 is one of only two pieces of TTC equipment preserved at CRM. It's a single-end wedge plow built in 1946 by National Steel Car and retired around the late 1970s. It's identical to TTC TP11, preserved in operating condition at Halton County. From what I can tell, it's largely complete but in rough shape.

The third piece of Montreal Tramways non-revenue equipment is MTC Y5. Of all the equipment on the deaccession list, this is the one that surprises me the most. Y5 is a motorized streetcar truck fitted with grids and a controller for use as a shop switcher. Only a couple of these things still exist in preservation (including another unnumbered example from Montreal, preserved at Branford). This one, homebuilt and dated to 1912, has been (or, at least, was) on display for years in CRM's impressive Exporail pavilion, so it's clearly in good cosmetic shape. It also takes up almost no space.

Then, we get to the interurbans. London & Port Stanley 10, shown here in a photo from the 1970s (I've never been able to find anything more recent), was one of the big all-steel cars built for that system by Jewett in 1915. It's been at CRM since retirement in 1962 but is obviously in rough condition. It's one of three cars of this series in existence (the other two are both at Halton County), and similar car 14 - built two years later and some 12' longer - is under restoration at the Elgin County Railway Museum.

Montreal & Southern Counties 104 is an attractive suburban wood car built by Ottawa in 1912. As with most of the other cars on this list, it appears to be complete but has suffered somewhat from storage outdoors. I'm not very familiar with the M&SC roster, but this car appears largely identical to M&SC 107 at Halton County, except that the latter car is a combine.

A very unusual piece of equipment for the PNAERC roster is next on the deaccession list: Quebec Railway Light & Power 105. This is one of the oldest cars on the PNAERC list, having been built by Jackson & Sharp back in 1889, nearly before "the invention of electricity." It started out as a steam-road combine but was later hauled as a trailer by QRL&P interurban cars like car 401, preserved at CRM. This car is so unusual as an electric car that its significance is somewhat limited outside of Quebec, but as an example of an 1880s passenger car, it seems quite historic. My impression is that it is complete and in moderate to good condition.

And the final piece of traction equipment being deaccessed is Canadian National 6742, a mainline commuter MU trailer built by Canadian Car & Foundry in 1952. It was built for the CN Montreal suburban electric line and joins similar motor car 6734 in the CRM collection. As with QRL&P 105, this is a trailer that's being deaccessed while its matching motor car remains in the collection. Several trailers of this series are operated by tourist railroads that haul them with locomotives, but this this may be the only one of its type preserved in authentic MU configuration.

In summary, this is the largest collection of traction equipment to be deaccessed by a museum in the last decade or so except for Seashore's recent "re-homing" program - but a quick look at what is being offered makes it clear that the equipment being deaccessed by CRM is far more valuable and significant, mainly for its completeness. The museum is also deaccessing more than 25% of its traction collection, which I think is unprecedented for a museum that is relatively stable overall. CRM is being admirably transparent in their process, and I hope that the result is that most or all of these pieces find the best possible new homes.