Thursday, September 14, 2017

Mysterious origins: Interprovincial Railway 8

Here's a car that isn't that mysterious at first glance, but I just can't figure out its ownership history. Interprovincial Railway 8 is a single-truck open car that is fully restored and in regular use at the Canadian Railway Museum in Delson-St Constant, Quebec. The trouble is, I can't make head nor tails of its origins.
According to my records - and thus the PNAERC roster - the car was built in 1895 by Patterson & Corbin for the Peterborough & Ashburnham Street Railway (number unknown). Then in 1918 it was sold to the Toronto Suburban Railway as their 18, then sometime later - possibly the 1920s - it was sold to the Interprovincial as their 8. Eventually it ended up as a trailer with Gillies Brothers in Braeside until in 1957 it was acquired by the Canadian Railway Museum.

Unfortunately there are a lot of holes in this history and I'm not very certain about any of it. It was very hard to find any information online about the P&A and even harder to find information on the Interprovincial. The P&A only operated cars until 1898, when it lost its franchise and shut down; streetcars in Peterborough started running again in 1902 under a different company. So this car wasn't owned by the P&A until 1918 but I don't know whether it was in Peterborough that late or went elsewhere earlier than I had thought. I also don't know when it was retired or what its condition was when it came to CRM. To further complicate things, CRM's website has changed in recent years to list the car as a TSR car rather than an Interprovincial car. Information on car 8 is badly needed to be sure! Something tells me that the origins of this car may not actually be that mysterious - they're only mysterious to me because I haven't personally tracked down this car's history. Ah, the raison d'ĂȘtre of the PNAERC site, as our friends in Delson might say.

EDIT: This mystery is solved! See here for information on this car's history.

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