Happy Birthday Goo 14 Traditional Cache
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A cache placed on my son's 14th birthday. Contains a FTF ribbon and some birthday loot bags in the spirit of the occasion. Check out the long description for some history on the surroundings.
We also dropped two travel bugs found in other locations. Help them get on their way!
Happy Birthday Goo!
An excerpt from the Orillia Packet and Times re: the train yard located beyond the fence...
But no one is going to suggest you walk to the Ellesmere Junction Railway Museum, unless of course you happen to live near the south end of Sideroad 20 in Ramara Township.
That's where the museum is located, just beyond the No Exit road sign.
When you get there, you'll think you've stepped into another world, a kid's world. The Smith farm looks like a train station with real railway cars filled with railroad artifacts and a locomotive for you to explore this weekend.
Cecil Byers takes care of it now. Over 31 years, he's had a lot of help from friends and train enthusiasts to build a living memorial to an era that has almost disappeared. It's been a private refuge. One that he's sharing this weekend.
"Just family, friends and so on," are the only people who have enjoyed the vintage railway cars up until now, Byers said.
Byers used to be an engineer on the CPR -- the Couchiching Park Railroad -- but gave that up when the Rotary Club got rid of the steam engine a few years ago.
At the museum, an old caboose is restored just like it would have been when it was in service. You could live in it -- and Cecil did.
"This was our summer cottage. I'm not a swimmer; I'm not a water person."
The caboose has bunks, and everything the conductor and brakemen would need to make long hauls comfortable.
It even has a destroilette. Yes, a destroilette. It's what you think it is, except unlike the old passenger car toilets that opened up, dumping what you don't want anymore right onto the tracks, these ones took care of the dirty business in a more environmentally friendly fashion.
There's a refurbished box car Byers has filled with railway memorabilia and a collection of old gramophones, which work. Ask him to play his recording of Queen Elizabeth II's Coronation speech.
Another box car was converted by the CNR to serve as a kitchen at the Uhthoff quarry so that railway repairmen had a place to eat and rest when they were dispatched to the area.
At the end of the line is an old locomotive. Once upon a time, the Sir Adam Beck hauled materials for the construction of the generating station in Niagara Falls. Now is a good time to see something that played a role in one of this country's finest historical moments because it's been sold to the Niagara Falls Museum.
"They haven't got a place to put it," Byers said of why it's still on his site.
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