Winnipeg Railway Museum to shutter at end of year

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This article was published 11/11/2021 (1489 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The final boarding call has sounded for the Winnipeg Railway Museum — home of the iconic Countess of Dufferin steam locomotive.

Representatives for the museum, located at Via Rail’s Union Station, announced Wednesday its doors will clank shut for good Dec. 31.

“We’ve been shut down essentially by new regulations,” public relations director Gord Leathers said Wednesday. “One of the problems that we have is we are in a 100-year-old building that was really never designed with people in mind: it was designed with machinery in mind.”

Leathers said the museum, on platforms 1 and 2 at historic Union Station, features spacious smoke channels in the ceiling and old stairwells built in the 1920s. Some of those charming historic features are no longer in compliance with City of Winnipeg regulations, Leathers said, though he has not seen the official list of necessary changes.

“In order to have people up there, we would have to make some serious upgrades to the place and it would just simply cost too much. It’s a heritage building, so it means we have to close down,” he said.

Word came down just a couple weeks ago, Leathers said, putting the volunteer-run museum in a state of “shock.”

Though the rail lines the museum sits on had long been earmarked for a future rapid transit route, Leathers said the museum was not expecting such a quick order to vacate.

A Via Rail spokesperson said Wednesday the Winnipeg station is undergoing extensive renovations to the exterior wall.

“Unfortunately, this work will trigger other building code requirements to the train shed necessary for the Winnipeg Railway Museum to resume its activities,” the spokesperson said in an email to the Free Press.

“We advised all impacted tenants, including the rail museum, several times over the past months as the work schedule was finalized. Via will continue to house the museum artifacts and we are working with the museum officials to find a new home for their activities.”

In the future, Leathers said the museum — which has been in operation for nearly 25 years — would “like to maintain a place downtown,” especially given the sheer size and weight of the artifacts it carries (including the Prairies’ first steam locomotive, the Countess of Dufferin).

“We have to pitch the movers and shakers of Winnipeg on why a railway museum is important,” said Leathers, adding the history of artifacts such as the Countess is important to the history of the Prairies as a whole.

Until the museum shutters at the end of the year, Leathers said he invites Winnipeggers to take in the history of the railroads — and keep their eyes out for the museum’s future location.

Meantime, the modest museum, which operates on revenue from admission fees, donations and gift shop sales, is hoping to catch the eye of corporate donors who can help fund its future.

“Let’s face it,” said Leathers, emphasizing the importance of pitching the museum’s value to potential stakeholders, “everybody loves a steam locomotive.”

julia-simone.rutgers@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jsrutgers