Part 1On Saturday, I took a nice trip to Capreol, which is located north East of Sudbury. In fact, Capreol is part of a bunch of smaller towns that were somewhat incorporated or amalgamated with the city of Sudbury. These outer regions are called Greater Sudbury even though they have all retained their historical place names. This makes the city of Sudbury a fairly big place due to the vastness of the region. Google map Capreol and you will see just how far it is from the city of Sudbury.
Capreol's claim to fame started as a bunk house built for the CN railway. This bunk house placed a dot on the historical map of the region, which caused folks to move here to work at and support those that do for the Canadian National Railway. Soon after, nickel and other minerals were found in the region causing more folks to migrate to the region.
I was going to Sudbury to check out a firearms store, and decided to Google attractions for the Sudbury area, and that is how I found this neat museum. This was my first visit to Capreol. It was also my first visit through a variety of other Greater Sudbury towns such as Val Therese, Hanmer, Val Caron, and Boninville...to name a few.
Before I post plenty of photos, I should tell you that I only brought my infra red camera. I have a Canon digital rebel DSLR that was converted to shoot only IR images. Thus all of these photos are records of a light spectrum that we cannot see with the naked eye.
Now onto the tour.
As we drove to the museum. I was taken aback at the distance from Sudbury it was...and it is still considered part of the Greater Sudbury. Sudbury sure dwarfs my home town of Sault Ste Marie for both population and area covered. Aside from that quick observation, I was a bit excited to finally get to the museum. Just on the other side of the parking lot, was a beautifully long working train with a lot of heavy equipment strapped to it. That got my expectations up I can tell you, my being a minor train buff. Here is a photo of one of the rolling stock. This train must have had over 60 cars like this one.
Here is a photo taken from the parking lot. This is a very beutiful historic building. I believe it once was the train yard boss's house. Quite nice inside. There is a small souvenir shop, along with most of the building being used as part of the musuem. More on that latter.
There is also a nice train themed children's park.
Now onto the grounds themselves. They had a mock up of a rail car building. They created this one to show what the first buildings in the area looked like. Back in the day, many a train car were converted as semi-permanent establishments for housing CN workers. Here is the outside.
It was rather surprisingly roomy inside. Our guide informed us that they would generally house 3 to 6 folks inside one of these. The mock up was for a more prominent family as it was only a single family dwelling. Here are some shots of the inside.
Now walking out of the rail car house and looking right.
A closer look at that car. This is the rail car that was once a sleeping car, but converted into a rolling classroom. At one time, this car was used to test CN workers. If they didn't achieve 90% or higher, they may be demoted or fired. It was also used as a rolling classroom. Many remote northern communities did not have a classroom, but most were located near a track. This way, the teacher could do his/her rounds.
Now looking to the left, a snow plow.
Here is a photo inside the snow plow car. I was told by our tour guide that working in one of these was hellish. It was always very cold and damp inside, and the noise when the plow was functioning was deafening inside.
Between the school car and the snow plow, was a nice caboose. This is inside looking up at the two seated stations.
Looking towards the back of the caboose. It was rather comfortable in here.
Sleeping accommodations inside the caboose.
Across of the caboose was a storage shed showing various modes of transportation for the work crews. All were used by CN.
Here you can see the work shed is located right next to the rail car house.
Now for a closer look at the shed's contents.
On the right side of the working shed are a few more projects waiting for restoration.
A look at that snow plow car.
This was written on a cable car, which was a passenger car that was converted by CN as a cable car. A cable car has a set of cables and pulleys used to help move derailed cars.
The museum even had a CN crane.
Here is a molten copper car in need of some restoration. Our tour guide told us how lucky they were in saving this piece of Sudbury history. It was slated to be scrapped but someone at the train yard moved it around for a couple of years until the right people could be found to save it for the museum.
This was written on the second caboose.
A plaque found on the side of one of the cars.
Looking to the left.
Here, several rail items used in the mining industry were on display in their separate side.
Falcon Bridge and Inco being the two biggest mining companies in Sudbury, it was no surprise to find their company logos on these older mining rail pieces.
The museum also had a 100 tone and 60 ton electric engine. This was on the larger electric engine.
Not exactly considered elegant, here is the ugly front end of that electric engine.
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