Deep inside the Halton County Radial Railway Museum near Acton, one will find the Toronto streetcar numbered 1326.
The red and yellow paint job hearkens back to a long-gone era of public transit, giving it much-beloved status among those who visit the rural museum.
However, it carries additional importance to those who volunteer to keep the museum on track and has even greater significance to those who founded it.
In 1954, Bob Sandusky and six other compatriots of the Upper Canada Railway Society joined forces to save car 1326. This move was the groundbreaking decision that created the museum.
“There have been lots of people in Canada and the United States – railways clubs and so on; they see something old that's disappearing and they try to preserve it,” Sandusky said.
“Then there is a rising of trolley museums, I’ll call them. There are several in the United States; there wasn’t officially much in Canada."
And thus -- in 1954 -- the impassioned decision to save a streetcar became the first leg in the HCCR journey, a historical moment that will be celebrated on Sept. 21.
Sandusky will be the only one from the founders to attend the 70th anniversary celebration. The other six – John Mills, Ron Cooper, John Kelly, Jack Knowles, Peter Matthews and Harvey Naylor – are all gone.
And yet, their historical efforts have created a sort of preservation society that's delighted and enlightened countless museum visitors. Few museums are true portals into the past, making the HCRR one among a highly exclusive class.
What's often missed by lovers of rolling stocks is the local institution has always sat at a unique historical intersection. The founding year of Sandusky and friends’ passion project was right in the middle of a period when light rail lines were being scrapped across North America.
Montreal, Hamilton and St. Catharines once ran their own networks, but no more. Many of their trains are preserved for all to see in the museum. The U.S. once boasted just over 27,000 kilometres of streetcar networks. New York City, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Los Angeles – at one point the world’s largest – and many others had extensive rail lines.
Lobbying by the automotive industry, governments prioritizing highways, the resulting upsurge in car use and, in some cases, the favouring of subways killed the streetcar. Toronto was one of the few North American cities to keep its network, albeit on a smaller scale.
The golden age of light rail became a sort of prehistory of the car age, although the mode of transportation is making a comeback in North America.
In the case of car 1326, Sandusky says that “when the TTC started its subway [in 1954], there was a lot of old equipment that became useless.”
He recalls many members of the UCRS, some who worked with the TTC, were worried that “a lot of the streetcars are going to disappear. Be nice to save one or two.”
“There was no group there that was interested in preserving anything that the TTC was about to throw out.”
The group of electric railway lovers set about finding land that would be suitable for the fledgling preservation society. As luck would have it, they found the perfect patch of ground – itself a museum of sorts – for building the future HCRR.
Between 1891 and 1931, the Toronto Suburban Railway connected Toronto to Guelph and had stops in Georgetown, Acton, Meadowvale, Streetsville and Huttonville, just to name a few. The chosen parcel, just south of Rockwood and east of Eden Mills, proved ideal.
The land was cheap, as the former owner had owed money in back taxes to the government. It was also located between Guelph Line and Fourth Line Nassagaweya, allowing access to the property from two sides.
The museum of today is located on that portion of the suburban railway line between the two roads.
And so work began on turning the land into a local gem. On June 25, 1972, the new museum opened its doors to the public.
“I don’t know if I ever thought that far out,” Sandusky joked when asked what the milestone meant to him. “We were trying to do something and get something done. You're never sure how it's going to be publicized or maintained after.”
What keeps the museum going is its dedicated team of volunteers. Much of the same spirit of preservation and love of history that created the landmark is very much alive today among those who call it a second home.
Some of the volunteers are, 70th anniversary planning chair Caroline Rose says, focused on “maintenance of the cars. So they keep the ones that visitors might see regularly operating.”
“They do an annual inspection in the spring, and then they continually do maintenance and inspections throughout the operating season,” Rose said.
In the time Rose has been with the HCR – about 25 years – they've constructed an additional display barn, an archive facility and various improvements to infrastructure.
Of course, several new cars have been added to the collection.
All of this is done as the technology of yesteryear that went into the trolley cars became more and more scarce.
“We have a good relationship and a sort of network with museums in the U.S.,” museum president Rob Lubinski said.
“Some of our volunteers who do the maintenance of the brakes and everything, we have opportunities to meet with their counterparts at other museums. Naturally, they trade expertise… we’ll exchange or trade parts.”
“The great thing is, a lot of these streetcars will have common parts.”
