New Year Steamup at the Ontario Steam Heritage Museum

Click on each image for a closer look!

On December 31st, Michael Guy and I visited the Ontario Steam Heritage Museum in Puslinch, Ontario just north of Hamilton. They have a wonderful collection of huge steam tractors, many of which are fully operational. This was the occasion of the end of year steam-up and they had 5 of their two dozen or so engines operating. It was quite a sight!

They also have a steam operated railway crane, two steam boats and two 3 foot gauge railway engines which are being restored as well. The engine in the picture is a 3 foot gauge Porter 0-4-0 with serial #3022 built in 1904. It was used in a mining operation in the Yukon and ended up in B.C. A local railway enthusiast here in Ontario acquired it. He also subsequently visited the actual mining site in the Yukon which is only accessible by helicopter. Once there, he found a few ore tipper cars still on the property. He later chartered the helicopter to bring out enough of the tipper cars to reconstruct one of them as shown in the picture.

There is an excellent article with more details about the museum which can be viewed by clicking here.

Posting and pictures by Russ Milland