On Saturday September 20th, 2008, a small gang of volunteers from the Niagara Railway Museum travelled to Aylmer, Ontario to remove a 300ft long unused siding at a feed mill. The track was donated to the NRM by Elgin Feeds, and arrangements were made to get the track out of the ground and ready for movement back to Niagara. The NRM crew consisted of President Ken Jones Jr., V.P. Aaron White, Ryan Grimes, Ken Jones Sr., and Jeff Smith.

It was a perfect day weather wise, and despite a 1/2 hr delay while the rented skid steer wouldn’t start at the rental shop (something that would haunt us thoughout the day), things went fairly well. We did our best to save as much of the other track materials as we could, but many of the bolts ended up being chopped off. The rail is a mix of 80lb & 100lb, with much of it being more than 70yrs old. Some pieces of the 80lb rail have some damage to their heads, but since we aren’t planning on using it for running rail, it will not pose a problem.

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The skid steer is crucial when moving around track materials due to the fact that a stick of 80lb rail can weigh upwards of 800lbs. It is needed to drag the rail over to the pile, and stack it neatly.

With this donation, we will have enough track length to store all of our current equipment. This will greatly aid us when we are ready to set up the museum site. We will still need to acquire ties and bolts.

The majority of Saturday was spent removing, sorting and stockpiling the track materials. Sunday morning was spent spreading and leveling the recycled asphalt we used to level the parking area where the track was. The skidsteer was used to backfill the low spots and fill in the ruts in the driveway.

The Niagara Railway Museum wishes to thank Wilf Saarloos, Owner of Elgin Feeds for donating the track to the Museum.