A New Home for Ottawa 696

Thanks to Sean Bowen and Jordan Helzer, who sent me this link to a Facebook post from the Railway Museum of Eastern Ontario in May. Ottawa 696, the oldest double-truck car from that city in preservation, has been moved to a new location. It has moved from its longtime home in an OC Transpo bus garage to the Railway Museum of Eastern Ontario in Smiths Falls, which is an organization new to PNAERC. RMEO has a small collection of steam-road equipment clustered around the town's rather impressive railway station, but car 696 is their first streetcar.

I don't have any insider information on car 696 or this transfer, but the photos posted of the move (including the one shown here) make it clear that the car's condition is similar to the photos on PNAERC taken back in 2018, suggesting that the major rebuilding project that was underway may have largely ground to a halt sometime back. As for the car's new home, RMEO does have a single-track barn, so my hope - especially given that the car doesn't have windows - is that car 696 is going in there and not remaining outside. The museum posted that there are no current plans for an operational restoration, but they do plan to complete restoration work on the car's body and possibly tow it around with a diesel.

Another question, since OC Transpo has divested itself of car 696, is what might happen to Ottawa 905, the other car owned by the city transit agency. While 1917-vintage car 696 is the oldest double-truck Ottawa car in preservation, 1933-vintage car 905 is the newest extant streetcar from the city. It was rescued out of a house in 2004 and has been stored in the same bus garage as 696 for some time, but it's a car body without any interior or running gear.

EDIT: Thanks to Bill Wall for sending along some additional background information. It seems that cars 696 and 905 were both moved to outdoor (tarped) storage at a city works yard in Cumberland, east of Ottawa, last year. That nixed any hope of restoration work on 696 continuing - until its move to Smiths Falls. I'm still not certain of what the plans for car 905 might be, or whether there are any.

Ottawa 696 restoration progress

Thanks to Bill Wall of Branford and Gerry Gaugl of the OTC 696 Restoration Group, which is currently working on a full restoration of Ottawa Transportation Commission 696. The car was built by Ottawa in 1917 and is the oldest double-truck car from the city in preservation. It's currently owned by the local transit agency, OC Transpo, and a group of volunteers have been making steady progress on a major rebuild of the deteriorated car that has been going on for some 15 years now. They've sent along some recent progress photos. Caption info is generally from Gerry with a few asides from yours truly. Enjoy!

This was the car on December 8th. Project worker Rhéaume painted the carbody “poppy red” and window band its first coat of “sunflower yellow”. [The car in the background is OTC 905, the newest Ottawa streetcar preserved, built in 1933 and acquired as a body in 2004 - FH]

Project volunteers Zen (not pictured), Komie, and Ted have been working on windows for the past year and are ready to install them once the glass arrives.

The upper windows being fitted to the car. It was more work than meets the eye redoing these windows, the outboard side had to be primed, then painted brown, the insides, stained and varnished along with adding to the bottoms a quarter inch felt strip, held in position with a steel strap. [Note that these cars had upper sash nearly as tall as the lower sash, a bit unusual -FH]

The bottom window ready to be fitted, like the upper windows, the lowers had to be painted (outside) and stained(inside). Next the brass hardware (cleaned & polished by Zen & Komie) had to be installed. They sure look great!

Project worker Bernd was busy fitting the clerestory windows and vents on the car.

Vents and windows are fitted. The molding is temporary, just being used as a guide, new molding will be made from a sample that salvaged from the old 696 interior.

Bernd has also been helping Rhéaume with the doors and the housing for the motors. Earlier in the project Gerry checked out the motors and replaced the diaphragms, happy to report that they were in good working order.

The removed side panel shows where the window side of the seat frame is to be mounted. After seat brackets are installed, project worker Paul will cut the panel to fit around the bracket.

The seat brackets have been installed, the panels cut and fitted.  The conduit and junction box are to carry the wiring for the car's heaters(non-functioning) and will be painted green to match the panels.  The pile of seat parts have been primed and will be assembled and painted after the windows, sills, bell cord are installed and the floor's finish completed.

One cross seat has been installed; every other row has a heater under it, with the wire connected to the "T" and conduit.

The bench seat frames seemed to fair better than the row seats frames; on those Gerry had to replace 80% of the steel.  Under the two front bench seats are the sand boxes which have to be fit before installation of the bench seat frame.  The seat cushions will have to be made "easily removable" in order to access the hoppers.

The sand boxes are in very sad shape and need much work.

Rhéaume has been working very hard on the front doors and step mechanisms.  Again everything is snug but not tightened because once the door motors are connected to the air, adjustments will have to be made.  

Doors closed...

...and doors open! Yahoo, they work!

Thanks again to Gerry for all of the great photos and information!