Electric Baggage Cart, donated by VIA Rail, in action!

In the past few months, VIA Rail Canada offered the Museum the donation of an old electrically powered baggage cart which formerly operated on the Union Station platforms. As shown in the picture below, we brought one of these back to the Museum.

A fleet of these "green baggage carts" were originally produced by the Elwell Parker Electric Company in the 1920's for use in the then brand new Toronto Union Station. Our posting pictures of the cart online encouraged others to add that"Such baggage carts were also in use at large British stations in the 1930s and at least into the 1940s and 1950s"and "Very similar carts were quite common in the streets of Paris around the "Les Halles" wholesale market in the fifties and early sixties, they disappeared when the market was moved out of town to Rungis to make place for the Pompidou art museum.."

After some remedial work and by borrowing the generator system from the Museum's fully operational Elwell Shop Crane, our volunteers got it working as can be seen in the video above.  In due course, we intend to restore the vehicle as we have done with our other baggage carts.

Posting by Russ Milland; Photo and video by Michael Guy

Click on each image for a closer look!