(The following story by Adam Mayers appeared on the Toronto Star website on August 31.)
TORONTO — When the Canadian National Exhibition closed for the season on Labour Day 1926, along with the carnies who hit the road, a special railroad car that had been on show was hitched to a locomotive and towed out of town.
The first-class coach had been gutted and remodelled with living quarters at one end and a classroom at the other. And for the next half a century, the car and six others like it were home to an extraordinary group of teachers who lived on the trains and spent their working life in remote Ontario communities. The trains visited places such as Capreol, Foleyet and Kukatush, small towns of miners, forestry workers and railroad maintenance staff that couldn’t afford a school building or a full-time teacher.
So between 1926 and the mid-1960s, school came to them. The teachers on these railway classrooms brought education and opportunity to thousands of children who would otherwise never have learned to read or write, and they offered a sense of community and connection to the outside world.
This distant chapter in the history of the province has been captured in photos that form part of an online exhibit by the Archives of Ontario The pictures are part of a broader online feature that shows the evolution of the provincial school system, our pioneer educators and the evolving philosophy of education.
It brings to light images of a time and place when attitudes and expectations were far different than today. Formal education was considered a privilege and schools and teachers were the anchor of their communities.
Archivist Andrea Robbins who put the online package together, says the job description for teachers applying for the railway classroom jobs shows how important the positions were viewed.
One ministry of education annual report noted that successful applicants were expected to act as cultural and social bridges in their off hours as well as teach during the day.
At each stop there were usually just eight students of all grades, some coming from 32 kilometres or more away and staying with other pupils for the chance to go to school.
A day would include lessons in language and arithmetic and social sciences. In the afternoon, formal lessons ended and the train became a social centre.
Parents dropped in to take advantage of the lending library, read newspapers and magazines, or buy items from the small store.
Families could also buy money orders to purchase from the Eaton’s or Simpsons catalogue and the items would be brought back by the teacher on the next run.
Caroline Brophy, curator of a museum in Clinton, near Bayfield, which is home to the last remaining railway school, says the program was a lifeline in the North.
“The schools and teachers helped isolated people stay in touch with the outside world,” Brophy says.
In the evenings, there would be card games, plays and impromptu concerts, book readings and discussions of world events. In the early days, the cars were heated by coal and lighted by oil lamps. Silent movies were either shown by hand-cranked projector or battery.
Clinton, about 80 kilometres north of London, is home to the railway car school because the program’s first teachers, Fred Sloman and his wife Cela, were both natives of the town. Sloman had taught in the North and together with the superintendent of education for the Sudbury district, J.B. McDougall, devised the railway car plan.
Canadian National Railway was persuaded to donate the first car.
It made sense for CN, whose “section men” were scattered throughout the North, looking after sections of track. They lived with their families and the prospect of education for their children made the jobs more attractive.
Fred and Cela raised five children on the trains during the course of a 39-year career and only in the last 10 years did they get a bathtub. Cela was midwife, cook, mother, teacher, counsellor and nurse, wrapped into one.
Brophy says the life was adventurous and rewarding for those who chose it.
Each of the school cars had a circuit, some as long as 354 kilometres. The cars were hooked up to regular CN, CP or Ontario Northern freight trains and dropped at specially built sidings along the way for a week at a time.
The teacher and their family lived on the train, in a space that had a day bed, small kitchenette and bathroom.
Brophy says each Sloman child had a chair with a drawer underneath for private things. Curtains were pulled as an indication of a need for privacy.
The students were left with enough homework to last until their school on wheels returned. The trains would make up to half a dozen stops along the route and made a circuit about once every six weeks. Brophy, a retired teacher, says the students ended up with 45 days of class time a year compared with 190 today.
By the 1960s, conditions had changed. Coal-fired locomotives, which needed to stop for water and fuel, were replaced by diesel trains.
Fewer section men were needed and better roads and cars meant people could live in towns. The service was discontinued in 1964.
In 1982, the Slomans’ car, 15089, was rediscovered. It was a burned out and vandalized shell on a siding at a CNR yard in Mississauga.
The Toronto Star reported that the roof was gone, there were no windows and a tree was growing in the middle of the coach. The town of Clinton bought it for $1,600. Volunteers have restored it and it now sits by the banks of the Bayfield River in Sloman Memorial Park.