(The following story by Ian Robertson appeared on the Toronto Sun website on May 31, 2009.)
TORONTO — The only City of Toronto-owned steam locomotive will soon be leaving the stationary tracks it has sat on for almost a half-century.
Saved from scrappers months after the coal-fired, pressurized boiler went cold in 1959, No. 6213 won’t be leaving Exhibition Place “under steam.”
There are no tracks except a short span the U-2g Northern class loco occupied for the last 49 years beside the Marine Museum.
Built for Canadian National Railways in 1942 in Montreal, the 181-tonne behemoth will be hauled on a highway float to the John St. Roundhouse on Bremner Blvd.
Owned by the city, which awarded a Whitby firm 6213’s transportation contract, the former Canadian Pacific Railway roundhouse has a park, Steam Whistle Brewery and the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre. A Leon’s store will open there in July.
The Toronto Locomotive Preservation Society (TLPS), stewards of the old loco for 35 years, hope to raise $1.2 million to refit the loco to pull a working excursion train, secretary-treasurer Doug North said Friday.
For now, with three roundhouse bays and most of the machinery needed for a full restoration, North — who is writing a book on 6213’s history — said it will be a star attraction and better supervised. “There has been vandalism at the Exhibition grounds.”
Canada’s last regular service steam locos ran in mid-1960s, but he said the restoration work can be handled by enthusiasts with North American excursion railroads, plus people who studied steam locomotive workings in other countries.
One of 35 identical locomotives built for CN, parts were removed as 6213 sat at the long-gone Spadina yard with other doomed steamers.
North said CN employee and steam enthusiast Jim Brown realized the refitted loco was in the best-condition to preserve as an example of the last steam-powered engines here.
Railway crews replaced missing parts and 6213 was moved to Exhibition Place on temporary tracks after CN donated it to the city in 1960.
It has been admired and photographed by generations of parents, kids and train lovers.
Since 1974, the TLPS has maintained it, whose whistle, gears and other parts except than the boilers are still operational, North said.
“She was a high-speed passenger locomotive,” he said. Mostly hauling trains on the Windsor-Toronto corridor, “it was capable of doing 100 miles an hour.”
The detached tender, which carried coal, is to be transported this week down Lake Shore Blvd.
The loco’s move was to conclude Friday, but was delayed while city engineers reviewed the load-bearing capacity of the Spadina Lakeshore bridge.
Two identical “sister” locos are in museums in Fort Erie and Ottawa.