ALBERTA PIONEER RAILWAY ASSOCIATION
This organization has already been registered
Someone in your organization has already registered and setup an account. would you like to join their team?Profile owner : i**o@a******************m.c*m
Mission Statement
The Alberta Railway Museum, located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, preserves and interprets significant railway artifacts, including locomotives, railway cars, track maintenance equipment, and buildings. Our collection and interpretation efforts focus on the Canadian National Railways, Northern Alberta Railways, and short line and industrial railways.
About This Cause
The Alberta Railway Museum is a volunteer run, not-for-profit heritage organization that prides itself in telling the history of Alberta’s railways through a hands-on and interpretive experience. The Alberta Railway Museum and its volunteers are dedicated to the preservation, restoration and interpretation of artifacts; our work is geared towards preserving the railway heritage that was instrumental in shaping the Edmonton region and more broadly, Alberta and Canada as a whole. The museum’s collection spans a significant number of artifacts and rolling stock including an operating Canadian National steam locomotive (No. 1392), CN's first mainline diesel locomotive, and a significant collection of cars and locomotives from the Northern Alberta Railways (NAR). It’s a step back in time to a bygone era, and on regular operating seasons, one can expect the platform to be full of families eagerly awaiting a ride behind steam locomotive 1392, tickets in hand. Open air museums such as the Alberta Railway Museum are integral to capturing the imagination of younger generations, creating engaging and immersive historical experiences. Alberta Railway Museum does just this, with a site housing a water tower, St. Albert Station, rail yard and two restoration shops with ongoing projects. Working telegraph offices are operated, 1950’s speeder maintenance cars are driven to the delight of passengers and tours are led by volunteers with a wealth of knowledge and stories to share. We intend to continue working on projects that will further enhance the visitor experience and allow the Alberta Railway Museum to share Alberta’s railway history for many years to come. On long weekends and field-trips, a volunteer is stationed at the office to teach visitors the importance of the telegraph on the railways, and how Morse Code was used. It is through this interpretation that questions are sparked in the minds of young visitors. The experience of riding the train is equally as exciting. Costumed NAR conductors are stationed at the platform, to the glee of young guests. Punching tickets and ushering passengers aboard, these volunteer interpreters use the train’s journey along the tracks to impart railway history and answer questions in an immersive, interpretive experience. It truly is a step back in time to a bygone era, and on regular operating seasons, one can expect the platform to be full of families eagerly awaiting a ride on a locomotive, tickets in hand. We aim to teach visitors the importance of the railway in developing the city of Edmonton as we know it. At its root, our artifacts represent the developments in technology over the past 100+ years that shaped not only our province, but the country as a whole during this period of technological growth. Our trains and artifacts span the introduction of the steam locomotive through to the introduction of the diesel electric locomotive. As a primary mode of transportation, railways were instrumental in bringing settlers and European immigrants across Canada and establishing the City of Edmonton as a railway town of significance. Edmonton, for some time, had been the central trading center for much of Alberta with its history dating back to Fort Edmonton and the trade that centred around its place in the river valley. If a present day Edmontonian were to look back at their family history, a great many would find that their relative’s lives were greatly impacted by rail travel. Homesteaders looking to start anew in the Alberta prairies would have packed up their lives and travelled by train to a stake that marked their new land. Cross-country travel would have been executed with greater ease, and lives were spent working the rails, shaping an entire generation of workers. The Albert Railway Museum sits on Treaty Six Lands and recognizes, that it was because of the Dominion Lands Act and Treaties Six and Eight that rail travel was made accessible to European immigrants crossing the country. Our Northern Alberta Railways display outlines how the railway connected isolated Indigenous groups far from the hub of Edmonton trade, providing a means to transport goods, trade furs and to provide communication with the world more broadly. We acknowledge the Indigenous heritage of the area with our locomotive “Chief Moostoos,” named after a chief who signed Treaty 8. Members of Moostoos’ family have attended the museum for the official presentation of the locomotive, as well as on our annual Northern Alberta Railways day. In this manner, we recognize the need for “all people on the land to be friends”, as Moostoos spoke of regarding the coming of European settlers. While upholding this message, we also recognize the part colonization has played in greatly suppressing the Indigenous peoples of Canada. We are committed to ensuring that these histories are not simply forgotten, but rather serve as a maker of change.