Doors Open - The Turntable & Handcar Experience

Click on each image for a closer look!
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Continuing with our coverage of the May 29th and 30th opening weekend of the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre, we turn our attention to the activities surrounding our turntable based events. At the turntable, we rotated the turntable periodically to provide visitors with the sights and sounds associated with its operation.
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In between these scheduled rotations, we allowed visitors to take a turn at operating the hand car that we acquired with the Walmsley collection. Handcars date back to the early years of the railroads and were typically used by railway service personnel for railroad inspection and maintenance. Because of their low weight and small size, they can be put on and taken off the rails at any place, allowing trains to pass. Handcars have since been replaced by self propelled vehicles that do not require the use of manual power, instead relying on internal combustion engines or electricity to move the vehicle. The museum has several examples of such vehicles (called "speeders" or ) as well which we have reported on earlier. For more information about handcars, click here.
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Posting by Russ Milland; Pictures by Dave Flinn, Lance Gleich and Russ Milland
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