Roundhouse park whistles up a museum

By Dennis Hanagan –

For the past 40 years Grant Kingsland has volunteered to keep a 68-year-old CN steam locomotive named 6213 mechanically sound and in cosmetically good order.

Today that locomotive is the crown jewel attraction at Roundhouse Park located south of the CN Tower.

“It’s the complexity and the immensity of them,” says Kingsland as he describes his passion for old locomotives.

Kingsland, president of the Toronto Locomotive Preservation Society, was on hand May 28 when dignitaries officially declared Roundhouse Park open to the public.

According to Kingsland 6213, which was built in 1942 as part of CN’s U2G class, was rated at 3,000 hp. “At the time she was hard to beat for power,” says Kingsland. She even out-powered the average diesel engines of the day, he says.

As for parts to keep her running Kingsland says “we pretty much have to manufacture parts or rebuild what we’ve got. It’s not impossible to keep (her) running.”

Lionel Levitt was on hand for Doors Open weekend to answer questions from the public about 6213. A steam buff, he can describe the functions of all the levers, all the gauges, all the handles, and how engineers of yesteryear relied on this myriad of devices.

Glenn Garwood, city manager for strategic policy and projects, says the park will take visitors back to the days when Toronto’s economy was comprised of “beer, booze, and railroads.”

It got that signature because the harbour was book-ended by Gooderham & Worts distillery at the eastern end and Canada Malting on Bathurst St.

The park takes its name from the roundhouse that was built in 1929 and is still on the site, its turntable restored. Also in the park is the original Don Train station that was built in 1896 and was still in operation at Queen St. and the Don River until 1967. A two-storey building called Cabin D, also built the same year, once stood on Bathurst St. It demonstrates how track switches were operated with levers. Garwood describes the technology as a “19th Century computer” which was still in use up until the late 1980s. The park also features a 14-minute video narrated by Derek Boles of the TRHA, explaining how the railway in turn shaped Toronto’s road system.