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Toronto Railway Museum
@torailwaymuseum.bsky.social
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The Toronto Railway Museum is located in the historic John St. Roundhouse National Historic Site. Open year-round to visitors interested in Toronto's rail heritage.
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Dec 6, 1977: contractor Teperman & Sons demolishes the former CN Parkdale station after it was severely damaged in an arson fire that October. The station had been moved from its original location to Sunnyside in February 1977 by a group that hoped to preserve it. 1/2
The heavily fire-damaged former CN Parkdale Station in December 1977, shortly before it was demolished. Charles Cooper photo.
December 7, 2025 at 3:32 AM
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Operations in the roundhouse’s active era relied on large amounts of water, and gauges like this example were essential for monitoring and controlling the building’s water pressure. This one likely monitored the fire sprinkler system. Check out this object and more at the Toronto Railway Museum.
A sprinkler water gauge dating to 1929. It was manufactured in Toronto by the James Morrison Brass Manufacturing Company on Islington Avenue for Purdy-Mansell Limited, a Toronto-based steam fitting and plumbing firm. Though the gauge’s brass housing shows obvious signs of oxidation, it is otherwise in good condition and is complete with its original glass, needle, and valve.
December 6, 2025 at 5:57 PM
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Do you subscribe to our monthly newsletter? It's the best way to stay up-to-date with the Toronto Railway Museum. Sign up any time using the form on our website or the links on our social media channels.

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The Roundhouse Park miniature railway water tank in the foreground, the John Street Roundhouse's original full-size water tank in the background on a snowy Toronto afternoon.
December 6, 2025 at 2:12 AM
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Dec 5, 2020: GO Transit opens its new Union Station Bus Terminal at the northeast corner of Bay Street and Lake Shore Boulevard, at the foot of the new 49-storey south tower of the CIBC Square complex, built by developers Ivanhoé Cambridge and Hines. 1/3
The heavily glazed exterior of the new bus terminal entrance on opening day, December 5, 2020. An illuminated GO logo sits near the top of the window over the entrance and illuminated letters saying "Union Station Bus Terminal" span the canopy immediately over the entrance doors. Photo by Rob Krbavac, CBC. Anthony Pezzetti, GO Transit Director of Bus and Rapid Transit Services, stands in front of GO bus No. 2576, the first bus to ever enter the new Union Station Bus Terminal on December 5, 2020. Metrolinx Photo.
December 5, 2025 at 3:35 AM
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Dec 3, 1855: the Great Western Railway opens its line between Hamilton and Toronto. This was the third railway to enter Toronto, after the Ontario, Simcoe & Huron in May 1853 and the Grand Trunk in October 1855. 1/3
An advertisement for the Great Western Railway in the Toronto Globe from December 3, 1855, announcing the opening of the Hamilton & Toronto Branch on that day.
December 4, 2025 at 3:41 AM
Reposted by Toronto Railway Museum
flyingtrilobite.com
My Dad, John F. Mellow, died today.

Like a lot of Gen X kids with Boomer dads, we had a complicated relationship.

I’ll miss him. I’m a tempest coated in chrome-numbness right now. Grateful to my family. 💛

🚂 If you like railways, he wrote a book in his retirement you may enjoy. #canadianhistory
OS Don Recollections of a CPR Telegrapher and Train-Order Operator
Bytown Railway Society
bytownrailwaysociety.ca
December 4, 2025 at 2:34 AM
torailwaymuseum.bsky.social
Our popular chocolate tastings with Tasty Tours Toronto are back this holiday season! Step into the magic of the season aboard our Holiday Chocolate Express, a decadent chocolate tasting inside a vintage train car. Four dates: Dec 13-14, 20-21.

tastytourstoronto.com/holiday-choc...
Holiday Chocolate Express - Tasty Tours Toronto
Step into the magic of the season aboard our Holiday Chocolate Express, a decadent chocolate tasting inside a vintage train car.
tastytourstoronto.com
December 4, 2025 at 2:13 AM
torailwaymuseum.bsky.social
Welcome aboard!
torontoarchives.cityof.toronto.ca Toronto Archives @torontoarchives.cityof.toronto.ca · 5d
We have permission for take-off! Hello Bluesky!

Follow this account for images and news from the City of Toronto Archives.

#Toronto #TOHistory #TOArchives
The Toronto skyline seen across the water from Hanlan's Point on a clear day in 2009. A small plane is taking off from the Island Airport into a bright blue sky. Photo by Peter Mintz, Fonds 589, Item 196.
December 3, 2025 at 3:21 AM
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Dec 2, 1905: Eaton's holds its first Santa Claus Parade—in an era when retailers waited until December before capitalizing on the Christmas season. Newspaper ads plotted Santa's journey on a private railway car filled with toys from the "Far North"—really Eaton's new Winnipeg store. 1/3
An ad for Eaton's department store in the December 1, 1905 edition of the Toronto Evening Telegram, promoting its Toyland Express and Toronto's first Santa Claus Parade, from Union Station to the Eaton's store at Queen and Yonge Streets. Courtesy of the Archives of Ontario.
December 3, 2025 at 2:45 AM
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Support the Toronto Railway Museum this #GivingTuesday. Visit www.torontorailwaymuseum.com/support to make a charitable donation today.
A view of Don Station in Roundhouse Park on a wintry day with evergreen foliage in the foreground and the Toronto skyline in the background. Banner text across the bottom of the image says "support the Toronto Railway Museum" and we hope that you will.
December 2, 2025 at 1:28 PM
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Dec 1, 1910: the Grand Trunk Railway closes its Swansea Station at Lakeshore Road and Windermere Avenue after construction begins on the Parkdale Grade Separation on the GTR right-of-way between Strachan Avenue and Mimico. 1/3
An 1894 map of the community Swansea, in York Township, located between High Park and the Humber River. The Swansea railway station, was located on the east side of Windermere Avenue, south of the tracks, near where the Humber loop of the Toronto Belt Line formed a junction with the Toronto-Hamilton mainline. Map produced by J. Ellis, lithographer, from the Baldwin Collection of Canadiana, Toronto Public Library.
December 2, 2025 at 2:59 AM
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Nov 30, 1905: the Grand Trunk Railway and the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh Railroad jointly incorporate the Ontario Car Ferry Company. In 1907, the company began steamship service between Charlotte, NY and Cobourg, ON, mainly carrying Western Pennsylvania coal to Canada. 1/3
The Ontario Car Ferry Company's Ontario No. 2 departing Cobourg harbour in 1930. Photo by Clifford M. Johnston, Library and Archives of Canada. A map showing the route used by the Ontario Car Ferry Company, crossing Lake Ontario between Cobourg, Ontario and Rochester, New York. Courtesy of the Cobourg Museum Foundation.
December 1, 2025 at 3:06 AM
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Nov 29, 1880: the railway war between the Grand Trunk and Credit Valley Railways over the latter’s route into Toronto reaches its conclusion. The CVR had reached as far south as Parkdale in 1879 but the GTR was determined to prevent its rival from getting downtown. 1/3
Tracks of the Canadian Pacific Railway (former Credit Valley Railway) and the Grand Trunk Railway between Parkdale (at upper left) and Union Station on the Toronto waterfront (bottom right) are visible in this 1886 bird's eye view lithographed by William Nathaniel Wesbroom. Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto.
November 30, 2025 at 2:37 AM
Reposted by Toronto Railway Museum
transittoronto.bsky.social
We've uploaded our longest ride along video so far onto our YouTube Channel. If you like train-related ASMR and moving scenery showing fall colours, check out our six hour VIA Rail run from Toronto to Sudbury Junction!
TT Ride Along - VIA Rail's Canadian: Toronto to Sudbury Jct (in Coach)
Ever want to ride VIA Rail's Canadian transcontinental... in Coach? Well, you can, for far less than in sleeper class. And you don't have to ride the whole length from it. Every Wednesday and Sunday, you can ride from Toronto to the beautiful Northern Ontario city of Sudbury for under $70! And, in t
youtu.be
November 29, 2025 at 5:11 PM
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Nov 28, 1925: The TTC begins operating the Weston Road streetcar, the last of four routes run on behalf of the Township of York Railways. It had acquired the line from Canadian National Electric Railways along with the Lambton line, which it began running three days earlier. 1/3
The opening ceremony for the TTC's Weston Road Streetcar on November 28, 1925. Flag-bedecked TTC work service car W-5 leads a parade also consisting of an old horse-drawn streetcar, followed by a long line of former Toronto Civic Railways electric streetcars up the newly regauged track on Weston Road as a large crowd watches. City of Toronto Archives photo.
November 29, 2025 at 2:36 AM
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Nov 27, 1910: the Pennsylvania Railroad begins using Pennsylvania Station as its New York City terminal. Before this date, PRR trains to New York City terminated in Jersey City, NJ, and passengers were ferried over the Hudson River to and from Manhattan. 1/3
A bird's eye view of Pennsylvania Station at Seventh Avenue and Thirty-Second Street in Manhattan, New York City in 1910. Photo from the Detroit Publishing Company photograph collection, Library of Congress.
November 28, 2025 at 2:46 AM
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Nov 26, 1920: Grand Trunk Railway No. 16, the eastbound Detroit-Montreal overnight train, derails just east of Victoria Park Avenue due to a broken rail. One of the Pullman cars, "Makura," was then sideswiped by a westbound freight train, demolishing the left side of the sleeping car. 1/2
An illustration from the November 26, 1920 edition of the Toronto Star, showing how the train wreck east of Victoria Park Avenue had taken place in the early hours of that morning.
November 27, 2025 at 2:59 AM
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Nov 25, 1880: the Credit Valley and Grand Trunk Railways reach an agreement allowing CVR freight trains to use a 2285 ft. (696 m) section of GTR track between Bathurst Junction and Brock Street (now Spadina Avenue), for $1500 per annum plus 8 cents per freight car. 1/3
A view of the railway tracks along the Toronto waterfront from Bathurst Junction in the west to Brock Street (now Spadina Avenue) in the east, as seen in an 1886 bird's eye view of Toronto lithographed by William Nathaniel Wesbroom. Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto.
November 26, 2025 at 3:30 AM
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Nov 24, 1995: Canadian National abandons 56.3 miles (91 km) of its Beachburg Subdivision from Brent through Algonquin Park to Nipissing, ON. This severed CN's transcontinental main line from Montreal to Western Canada; all transcontinental freight traffic now went via Toronto.
A nearly empty yard at Brent, Ontario, in the middle of Algonquin Park in the summer of 1995, not long before CN abandoned this line in November of that year. A lone transfer caboose and some maintenance of way equipment were the only occupants of the yard when this photo was taken by Hugh Timmerman.
November 25, 2025 at 3:37 AM
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In October, the TRM Curatorial Team closed an off-site storage unit and moved the collection items to the Roundhouse for review. Our staff and volunteers are now busy behind-the-scenes updating collections records and identifying duplicate materials. This also helps us create new displays for 2026.
Members of the Toronto Railway Museum's curatorial team hard at work in our museum stalls at the John Street Roundhouse, reviewing objects in our collection that have recently been brought out of long term storage.
November 25, 2025 at 1:50 AM
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Nov 23, 1999: a westbound CN freight train collides with a tractor trailer stuck at a crossing in Bowmanville, Ontario. The CN train pushed the burning wreckage almost a kilometre before it was hit by eastbound VIA Rail Train 68 en route from Toronto to Montreal. 1/3
A photo published in the Calgary Herald, November 24, 1999, showing the train wreck at Bowmanville, Ontario the previous evening. A derailed and damaged VIA locomotive is seen at left, with firefighters and other emergency personnel milling around, and several freight cars dimly visible in the background. Photo by Fred Thornhill, Canadian Press.
November 24, 2025 at 2:47 AM
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The Toronto Railway Museum has partnered with Sustainable Books, a local charity that recycles, reuses, and re-homes used books. Sustainable books is taking duplicate and non-rail related books that have been given to the Museum over the years.

sustainablebooks.com
A representative of Sustainable Books prepares to load several boxes of surplus books from the Toronto Railway Museum into his van.
November 23, 2025 at 9:07 PM
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Nov 22, 2015: the TTC's Leslie Street Car Barn opens at the southeast corner of Leslie Street and Lake Shore Boulevard. This was the first new streetcar storage and maintenance facility in Toronto since the Eglinton carhouse opened in 1922 and the Hillcrest Shops in 1925. 1/2
A Flexity Outlook low floor streetcar sits on an outdoor track beside the brand new Leslie Barns in 2015. Photo courtesy of the TTC.
November 23, 2025 at 3:32 AM
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Our Curatorial Team is busy processing new acquisitions that are going on display in 2026. We can't wait to share what's new!
A metal toy railroad crossing guard and sign.
November 23, 2025 at 1:50 AM
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Nov 21, 1928: the SS Norfolk from Fort William opens the new 2,000,000 bushel Toronto Terminal Grain Elevator at the foot of Peter St. The elevator was a vantage point for several well-known photographs, including a much-reproduced view of CP's new John Street Roundhouse. 1/3
The SS Norfolk, owned by the Canada Steamship Lines, tied up at a pier circa 1930. Photographer unknown. A photo taken from the top of the Toronto Terminal Grain Elevator, looking northeast toward the new John Street Roundhouse in 1930. In the background the also new Royal York Hotel is visible amidst the city skyline. Baldwin Collection of Canadiana, Toronto Public Library.
November 22, 2025 at 3:19 AM