The restoration of the 2-6-0, a wooden baggage car, and a wooden coach was estimated to cost $1.1 million. While citizens and community organizations have expressed their desire to keep the relics on display, no offers of funding for restoration have been received.
The locomotive, originally Grand Trunk Railway No. 1088, and the cars have been in the park for almost 60 years. According to local news media, a community-led project in the 1990s restored the equipment cosmetically but did not address structural issues. The parks commission does not have the resources to care for the equipment.
The locomotive is a sister to a number of other preserved GT/CPR 2-6-0s, including Strasburg Rail Road No. 89, Middletown & Hummelstown No. 91 and Wilmington & Western No. 92.
A request for expressions of interest for the century-old railway artifacts will now move forward, with more information available on the parks website at http://www.uppercanadavillage.com/train. The divestiture process will close on Aug. 30 at 4:30 p.m.
It is Canadian National, not Canadian Pacific. I can’t believe such an egregious error would appear in the Trains newsletter.
I’ll admit it. I had a brain brownout. I knew the engine was CNR after the GT.
I am confused. GT was a CN predecessor not a CP predecessor. This error is throughout the article, not just in the title.
Is this the display near Upper Canada Village? Was always nice to drive by there and while I haven’t crossed over the St. Lawrence River into Canada in the past few years, it always looked nice and well cared for from the highway.
The electric locomotive in downtown Cornwall just to the east (near the impressive high level truss bridge across the north channel of the river that the city government couldn’t get rid of fast enough in a mistaken and foolish belief that the new bridge would revitalize the city) is also under fire with some of the politicians wanting to see it dismantled.
I would think the Lost Villages museum would be a good home. I wish I had gotten around to visiting there before letting my passport expire back three or four years ago, but Canada didn’t seem to want me to visit despite nothing worse than a fix-it ticket once for a blown headlamp. Last dozen times over there was always met with being pulled aside and spending an hour with the Cornwall CBSA, so I ended up pretty much discouraged from ever going over again.
CP was never involved with the engine. CN donated the engine and cars. My late fellow employee Jim Campbell, was on the crew that placed the equipment on approx. 300 feet of the former eastward track Cornwall sub Hope it will be saved.