Caption: Elmira station, at the east end of the railway in PEI back in the day, was located near the end of the Elmira Spur off the Souris Subdivision. The station was preserved and in 1975 a couple of passenger cars were rolled in for future artifacts. However, due to neglect, NOT the fault of the museum personnel themselves; a wooden baggage car was lost to arson, and the car in this image, a steel sided Canadian National RPO car #9722, succumbed to deterioration from the salty climate over the years and was scrapped. All that is left of the two cars at the museum is a truck. To this day, the station, however, has been kept in great condition and the museum has flourished in recent years and is well worth a visit. There is a new building housing a riding model railway, a CN wood caboose #78431, , hand car and track into the woods has been kept; and this year one of those small community wait stations (CN Porthill) has been brought in, and is situated down the line along the approximate half mile of track that has been preserved.
As mentioned in a previous caption, PEI's railway (PEIR) was built 1880s, last train Dec 31, 1989; track taken up by 1992 and the RoW bought by the provincial government in 1994 in order to form the Confederation Trail, and it is a beautiful piece of work.
Elmira Station is registered in the list of Historic Places.
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Did you get a “now” picture of this one?
If you click the map and go to street view.. you can see what it looks like today
Yes, I was back there this spring, and it was impressive to see that progress, rather than neglect, is now the order of the day.
I was there in 1997 and the nice lady who was the curator told me about he “arson”. The baggage car was a wood car bought 2nd hand from AYRX in the U.S. many years ago. It was most likely the only extant example of these unique cars. The Government ordered the museum to remove the asbestos insulation…in spite of the fact the car wasn’t open to the public. When the museum asked for financial help, none was forthcoming so the local fire department came onto the property and burned it to the ground. By the time I visited there, all that was left was the steel underframe and trucks. The Baggage / mail car was also rare….and in green and black. It had a 60′ mail “apartment” and a 20′ baggage section so most likely never served any time on PEI.