CORNWALL, Ontario – In an email to her colleagues, shared with the media, Councillor Elaine MacDonald explained that she had been contacted by the Smiths Falls Railway Museum of Eastern Ontario who have stated their interest in acquiring Cornwall’s Locomotive #17.
Located on the corner of Brookdale Ave. and Ninth St., Locomotive #17 is the last remaining train from the time that Cornwall used a tramway in the city.
Over the past several years, the train has fallen into disrepair and has been left to rust. Successive councils have expressed their reluctance to spend the money to refurbish the train, which is currently estimated at around $150,000.
At a budget meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 27, Council voted against MacDonald’s motion to sell, donate or scrap the locomotive.
MacDonald said she spoke over the phone with Graeme Roy, Vice President of the Smith Falls museum and museum engineer Tony Humphrey.
“He (Humphrey) told me he has often looked at our locomotive with tears in his eyes and pledged that if we were to entrust the locomotive to the Smiths Falls Museum it would find a very happy and loving home,” MacDonald wrote to her colleagues.
MacDonald acknowledged that Council had already made a decision on this, but stated that perhaps selling or donating the train to the Smiths Falls museum was an avenue that could be explored in the future.
