The 2025 Niagara Division calendars are now available. This is one of the finest railway calendars you can buy featuring many historic, rare and high quality photos. Head over to our calendar page and check it out!
September 25th marks the start on the next year of CRHA Niagara monthly meetings. It is also time to renew your membership, or join if you are not yet a member.
Benefits of CRHA Niagara membership
- Monthly meeting with fellow railfans featuring excellent presentations by members and prominent speakers
- Notifications of group outings with fellow members
- Group walking tours with fellow members to historic railway sites
- Advice from fellow members on photography and rail history
- Frequent email contact, from fellow members, often with photos or video, featuring sites visited, experiences, and rail history .
- Opportunity to participate in the outstanding historic plaque programme conducted by CRHA Niagara.
- Direct contact with CRHA/Exporail through CRHA Board member Andy Panko.
- Camaraderie and friendships created by contact with fellow CRHA Niagara members.
Membership fee for 2025 $30.00 (Unchanged)
Early payment bonus – for membership paid no later than October 31, 2024
Membership $30.00
2025 CRHA Niagara Calendar $20.00 (regular price $25.00)
Total $50.00
The 2025 CRHA Niagara calendar is really an album of rare historic rail photos and their stories.
Methods of Payment
- Cash to Paul Chapman or Chris Paxton at the next monthly meeting
- Interac etransfer to crhaniagara@gmail.com
- cheque payable to CRHA Niagara address: 72 Hillcrest Avenue, St. Catharines, ON, L2R 4Y1
Membership must be paid no later than January 31st, 2025 to continue all the benefits.
We look forward to seeing you as we start the next exciting year at CRHA Niagara. Meetings are at 7:00 PM, the last Wednesday of each month, from September to May, except December, at the Lock 3 Museum in St. Catharines. Meetings are “hybrid”, that is by Zoom link, and face-to-face, unless it is clear there is an impending winter storm.
Are you interested in local railway history, or a model railroader?
Canadian Railroad Historical Association (Niagara Division) and Tiny Railroads present
Railroad Night
Wednesday, September 25, at 7 pm
Lock 3 Museum, Welland Canals Parkway @ Lock 3, St. Catharines
Feature Presentation by model railroader/historian Terry Hughes on
‘How Model Railroading Can Advance
Our Local Railway Heritage’
(a ‘must see’ -the connection between model railroading and Niagara railway history)
PowerPoint presentations also include:
- Historic NS&T scenes – Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Niagara Falls – 1950s
- Steam and diesel helpers on the Thorold Hill (1950s to 1970s)
- ‘Never Shown Before’ – Reg Button’s 1960’s local Ontario photos (CN, CP, TH&B, Wabash)
- Recent local train happenings – making FUTURE history (July to September 2024)
- 2025 Niagara railway calendar will be available, still only $25
Luckydraws FREE ADMISSION FREE PARKING Railway Book Auction
CRHA (since 1932), CRHA Niagara Division (since 1978)
June 21st, 2024 was the annual Longest Day of train watching attended by several members, including a member from UK. Several photos can be found on this page: June 2024 – Longest Day
Last night was our May hybrid (in-person and online) meeting and was attend by about twenty plus folks. Many of us started off with a large group at Ricky-Jo’s sharing a meal a great stories. We whisked through the business portion of the meeting and got straight to the presentations. We had four digital shows and one slide show.
We were treated to an excellent show by Andy Panko highlighting the history of the of NS&T main line through Merritton including maps, diagrams and photos. He also covered the history of the Michigan Central line through St. David’s including the story of a cement plant built on the side of the escarpment, again with many photos. He also outlined an upcoming hike planned for mid-October featuring many historic rail sites in the Niagara Falls and St. David’s area.
We then had a wonderful presentation by Glenn Cherry of his recent trip into the US to see and photograph CPKC’s Hudson steam engine 2816 on its tour through western Canada and down into the US. This was followed up by Tammy’s super presentation which overlapped Glenn’s also covering 2816 with additional photos of American short lines. Then Ricahrd Guitar, one of our ZOOM attendees, shared some of his digitized slides of railway scenes from the 1970s.
Finally we had a slide show by Steve Armstrong which featured some very artistic shots of steam excursions from the 1970s. All in all they were all excellent presentations.
The Longest Day is coming up on Friday June 21st where, those that wish to, will gather on the Laking Garden bridge for breakfast and the morning rush of trains. Our BBQ is also planned for July and a GO trip is planned for August so it should be an enjoyable summer. Our next hybrid meeting is scheduled for Wednesday September 25th at the Lock 3 Museum and over ZOOM.
There are still a few copies left of our excellent 2024 calendar. Email chrisjpaxton@icloud.com to get yours. See the calendar page here for more details.
The monthly hybrid meeting was last night at The St. Catharines Museum at Lock 3 with good attendance in person and on line. Plans were discussed for The Longest Day which falls on the Summer Solstice; the CHRA Niagara annual BBQ which is set for July; a GO train trip planned for August and a fall hike set for October. There were great presentations by Glenn Cherry, Dean Brown and Andy Panko. All in all another successful meeting, looking forward to the next one on May 29th. See you then!
The 2023 calendar features historic railway images from around the Niagara Region and beyond with descriptions of the contents of each and every image.
To read all about each of these images please purchase a calendar for $25.00 CDN plus HST plus $4 shipping. To do so, contact Tammy at crhatammy@gmail.com
To see more of the great images in the 2023 calendar, click here!
The Niagara Train Show, hosted admirably by the Niagara Railway Museum again was a great success with lots of railway aficionados as well as young families attending.
The CRHA Niagara booth at the Niagara Train Show was also a great success for us. We offered the following:
- Our promotional boards as used at our plaque unveilings
- A poster board about St.David’s and its railways by Andy Panko
- A continually running Powerpoint presentation in three parts:
- A few slides about Exporail (our parent organization)
- Our best slides from our Longest Day excursions over the past few years
- A slide show about our five current historic plaques
- …. And of course, railway themed baked goods by famous chef Tammy Frakking which sold quite well.
How is success measured beside sales of stuff. We got three new members signed up!!
Thanks to the leadership of Tammy and a handful of CRHA Niagara members who dropped by to help during the show.
We are looking forward to being there again for the next Niagara Train show in the fall!
CRHA Niagara will have a table at the Niagara Train Show this weekend.
Do come and visit us!
Details of the show are below:
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