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.

Several Mysteries Solved

Many thanks to Wesley Paulson and the others who have sent information on the "situation unknown" cars in the list I posted a couple of days ago. I've been able to answer a few of these questions with the information submitted.

First, it's confirmed that Newport & Providence 9, the body of a double-truck open car built by Laconia in 1904, was demolished by the Seashore Trolley Museum in November 2023. The body - what there was of it - was already in a state of partial collapse, so this was pretty much inevitable. The car has been removed from the list. The above view from here dates to 2019; the below image is a still from a video of the car being dismantled. Thanks to Jack D for confirmation of this.

The second car removed from the PNAERC list is TTC subway cab-on-flat work car RT28, shown below in a photo from 2007 from here. This car and identical car RT29 were preserved at Halton County, which still has RT29 in its collection to represent the type. Thanks to Gord McOuat for confirming that RT28 was scrapped, something like a decade ago as it turns out.

Gord also sent confirm that all three Canadian Railway Museum/Exporail cars - Montreal Tramways 1953, Quebec Railway Light & Power 105, and Toronto TP10 - are very much in existence and are stored indoors in an off-limits building at CRM. Gord even sent a sheet of technical information on TP10 that allowed me to flesh out its entry.

Modern MUs at Exporail

Many thanks to Jacob Wiczkowski, who pointed out that I had missed a pair of electric cars that entered preservation this past October: Exo 400 and Exo 485. They have now been added to the list.

The cars are shown above, in a photo from this page, being delivered to the Canadian Railway Museum (aka Exporail) in Delson-Ste. Constant, PQ, this fall. The cars are MR-90 type mainline commuter cars set up in good old motor-trailer fashion, with car 400 representing the fleet of four-motor cars while 485 is a control trailer. These MR-90 cars were built by Bombardier in 1994-1995 and replaced the old GE boxcabs and 1950s MU cars, many of which are now in preservation. But Montreal is completely rebuilding the Deux-Montagnes line, so this fleet was retired en masse in late 2020.

The entire fleet of 58 of these cars was scrapped except for these two, so they're unique and moderately significant in that respect. I'd also point out that their most recent operator, Exo, probably represents the shortest railway name on the PNAERC list. I have almost no mechanical information on these cars - they ran on 25kV AC and apparently used Siemens AC traction motors, but that's all I've got. If anyone can contribute control, motor, truck, brake, or air compressor information, I'd be very much obliged.

Montreal 274 update

It's not unusual for me to find out about a change to a preserved car - a restoration project, a sale, maybe a scrapping - a few years after it happened. Some museums don't have as robust an online presence as others and there are a number of trolley museums where I simply don't happen to be in regular contact with anyone who volunteers there. Such is the case with the restoration of Montreal Street Railway 274.

Looking for something largely unrelated, I happened upon this photo taken in 2018 of car 274. The car in question was the first piece of equipment acquired by the Canadian Railway Museum, back in 1950, so it's historic for that alone. But it's also a very old car, dating to 1894, and it was built by Newburyport, a builder with only two preserved products. I had been told about a decade ago by Gord McOuat that car 274 was being cosmetically restored by CRM but I hadn't heard anything about it since and managed to miss any announcements the museum might have put out about completion of the project. As a comparison, this is what it looked like prior to cosmetic restoration:

Photo from this site. So that's quite an impressive transformation. The car's condition, formerly listed as "under restoration," has now been updated to "displayed inoperable."

If you come across a car on the list whose information is out-of-date, please drop me an email. I'm always interested in keeping listings as current as possible. Thanks!

More From Canada

Today I was able to add a pair of Canadian cars to the PNAERC list, though admittedly I'm rather tardy on one of them. The less unique of the two, I'd say, is Toronto CLRV 4034, shown above at its new home at the Illinois Railway Museum. It is now the fourth CLRV preserved but the first one not at Halton County. IRM has built a short section of Toronto-gauge track, which is what the car is now sitting on, but the intention is to regauge a spare set of trucks acquired for the purpose and put the car into operation on the museum's streetcar line. This will presumably be the first time a CLRV has operated south of the border since this happened.

The second car to be added today, shown above in a photo from Flickr, is by far the more unusual one. It's Montreal Metro 81-502, which actually made its way to the Canadian Railway Museum (aka Exporail) more than a year ago in September 2018, and it qualifies for several "firsts" on the PNAERC list. The facts that it's the first Montreal Metro car and the first car built by Canadian Vickers are the least of it: it's the first rubber-tired subway car that I've added. It was one of the inaugural group of MR-63 class rubber-tired cars built in the 1960s for the Montreal Metro, using technology patterned after that used on some lines of the Paris Metro.

Fortunately the decision of whether or not to include it on my list wasn't too hard; besides its tires, which in service would support most of the car's weight, it also has standard railroad wheels that ride on standard-gauge track. So given that fact, I'd definitely say it qualifies for the list. I'm still looking for technical information on the thing: it has a pretty standard two-truck design with traction motors on each axle, and supposedly has some sort of cam control, but I haven't been able to find much in the way of specifics on its electrical gear.

Toronto Suburban Railway 8

Another mystery is solved, at least to the degree it's likely to be solved. A while back I posted this piece asking for information on the car shown above, Interprovincial Railway 8, preserved at the Canadian Railway Museum. The other day I stumbled upon this photo which looked a whole lot like car 8 and it occurred to me that it might be worth sending an e-mail to Gord McOuat, general Canadian traction expert, asking about the car. Gord didn't disappoint and sent me the car's entire ownership history so far as is known.

The kicker is that it never ran on the Interprovincial Railway! Well that's embarrassing. It turns out that tidbit came from a book published back in the 1990s and was erroneous; instead the car is more properly known as Toronto Suburban Railway 8. It was indeed built in 1895 and ran for two successive street railway companies in Peterborough, Ontario before going to Toronto. When exactly that happened isn't clear; apparently open cars were banned in Toronto around 1915 so it would have been before that. It went to Gillies Brothers, a large lumber mill in Braeside, Ontario at some point around 1920 or so (the photo linked above shows it still on TSR in 1920 but obviously out-of-service) and remained there until donated to CRM for preservation in 1957 (though it was kept on the Montreal streetcar system for a few years). It most likely went to CRM along with the rest of MT's historic collection in 1963. Many thanks to Gord for this helpful information!

Montreal Tramways cars updated

Thanks to Gord McOuat of the Halton County Radial Railway for providing technical information on two cars on the PNAERC list that are preserved at the Canadian Railway Museum in Delson-Ste. Constant, Montreal Tramways 1953 and 1959. These are both lightweight cars built in 1928 and comprise two of three surviving examples of their type (Bill Wall points out that 1972 is preserved at Branford). Until now I was lacking any mechanical information at all - trucks, motors, control, brakes, etc. Thanks Gord!

I'm still in need of this information for some of the other cars at Delson. If you're able to provide any information, it's always apprecaited!

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'être 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.