Boys love their toys or so goes the saying. And as they boys grow bigger, so do the toys. For members of one club, the toys have grown from electric train sets to steamer engines – actual miniature steam locomotives.
The Toronto Live Steamers club is small – just 15 members ranging in age from 42 to 77. But the engines they build and run are mighty – mighty enough to carry their owners around a small track. Looks like fun, you say? It is, but that ride takes a lot of time – and money – to realize.
The first step, explains Mike Salisbury, president of the group, is putting together a machine shop in your basement. “You need a lathe, a drill press and a milling machine,” he says. “Then you need engineering drawings for the locomotive you want to build. They’re available from catalogues.”
Brian Coles, another member and a fellow Brit, adds: “It takes between 2,000 and 4,000 hours to build the locomotive, depending on your skill and the complexity of the engine.”
Or you can do what Paul Fung, another club member did – he bought his ready-built from another member four years ago. “I liked playing with model trains but I wanted something bigger, something that could pull me along,” he says. “So I moved up.”
The group has cut the grass around their mile-long, raised track in Milton, and are preparing their trains for the first runs of the day. Each locomotive is filled with fuel – Salisbury uses coal, Fung uses wood, and Coles uses a blend of coal and corn which, he says, is cleaner burning but doesn’t produce as much agreeable smoky exhaust.
After 20 minutes of pumping and steaming, the pressure in each engine has been raised to 80 psi and it is carefully moved onto the transporter to be shunted onto the track. Seats with foot rests are coupled behind each locomotive, the owners mount, and they’re off, chuffing along the track.
While the tools needed to build these locomotives are pricey – the machine tools can run about $2000 – there’s huge satisfaction for these aficionados. “And it isn’t as expensive as golf!” asserts Salisbury.
There are other clubs like this one in the area as well as across the continent and overseas. These are usually railway enthusiasts who probably began as train spotters or model train collectors, but found they wanted more. Most of them volunteer with railway-related activities. Coles volunteers with the South Simcoe Steam Railway at Tottenham. And Salisbury has built another engine for Toronto’s new Railway Museum, to be located at the John Street Roundhouse.
The Roundhouse will be the home of the new Railway Museum and another mile-long miniature track where visitors will be able to ride along. Derek Boles is the official historian for the Toronto Railway Historical Association (TRHA), a group founded by enthusiasts in 2001 to preserve some of the rapidly dwindling rail heritage in the area. TRHA has worked with the City of Toronto to preserve both Union Station and the Roundhouse.
Roundhouse Village will be home to the new Railway Museum and the grounds already house the venerable Don Station and Cabin D (the tower which controlled the interlocking between tracks and signals), both built in 1896. The station is, according to Boles, “one of the most beautifully restored 19th-century railway stations you’ll find.” Also here is Engine 6213, a magnificently refurbished locomotive.
“There are a lot of railway museums in the middle of nowhere but I don’t know of any with this kind of prominent, downtown location,” Boles says with pride.
Currently, Steam Whistle Brewery uses 11 stalls of the 32-stall Roundhouse while bays 15-17 will house the new museum. In a daring move applauded by TRHA, the remaining area was leased to Leon’s, Canada’s oldest furniture retailer, still family owned and operated.
The company accepted the challenge to convert the building into a showroom while respecting its heritage. Don Loucks, a renowned heritage architect, oversaw the project, ensuring that not a single nail or screw damaged the existing historic beams. Instead, everything is attached by means of clamps and pulleys. Looking for a new couch or appliances? This spot is worth a visit if only to check out the railway history exhibit by the front entrance and see the splendid preservation of what Mayor David Miller called at its opening, “the most extraordinary adaptive re-use of a heritage building, probably in Canada.”
The new museum is scheduled to open in 2010 and the members of the Toronto Live Steamers, most of whom have been involved in the preparations, can’t wait to bring their hobby to a larger audience.
For more information check out trha.ca. As well, Boles of TRHA offers tours of Union Station on the last Saturday of each month at 11 a.m. Cost is $10. Reservations aren’t necessary.
