With the winter snow finally upon us, I think it?s a good time to show some of the Niagara Railway Museum?s artifacts. There are many items that just can?t be shown because of their size, or condition. Some of them are even too new to really show off. However, for part 1 of this series, we will look at some of the items from our Great Gorge Route collection, including the International Railway Company (IRC).
One of the many postcards we have will be first up. This card, mailed on February 8, 1910 shows the grade going into the gorge on the American side. Note the 2 men working on the up-bound (right hand) track.
Railroad passes were often given out to officials of other railroads to allow them to ride for free. The NRM collection includes 2 such passes, one for 1903, issues to a Mr. George E. Merchant, and one from 1925 to Mr. F L Wilson, the Division Passenger Agent for the New York Central Railroad. Of note on these passes is that in 1903, Bert L Jones was the General Manager, and in 1925 he was still with the company, but now as a combined Vice-President and General Manager.
The Museum was lucky enough to acquire some rare paperwork, right form the GGR?s (IRC) Whirlpool Car Barns, which at one time were located across from the Spanish Aero Car (which was built in 1913 and opened in 1916) on River Road near Victoria Ave. These numerous pages of documents show what cars were out of service, and for what reason. Some of them were in for the same repairs many times.
As part of that collection came an original International Railway Company button and switch key. The NRM also has this rare button (below), which we believe was warn through the button hole of a jacket for use when crossing the border to show where you got on the train. One of the key pieces in the collection is the Conductors hat badge. If records could ever be located, it would be great to find out who #23 was.
We also have numerous postcards and brochures from throughout the life of the line, some of which can be seen on our main page at:
http://nfrm.ca/galdisp.php?TitleID=4&resultpage=1&pagesize=4
No cars from the GGR survived the scrapping but the line does live on in photographs and artifacts. There are 2 books out, one of which is very difficult to find by Peter Watson, which covers the entire line in a now and then style. The NRM sells the other book, from the Niagara Frontier Chapter NRHS, in our store.