Experience Québec
The Christmas train
The Toyland Express is here… all aboard!
In the 1950s, electric trains were a popular sight beneath the Christmas tree. Larger versions delighted children visiting the Toylands at Eaton’s flagship stores in Montréal, Toronto and Winnipeg. The Toyland Express trains carried their young passengers through a magical setting, surrounded by toys and dumbfounded shoppers. Suffice it to say that Timothy Eaton loved Christmas. Railroad buffs, here’s your chance to see the famous little train at Exporail, the Canadian Railway Museum, just a stone’s throw from Montréal.
At Exporail, the Canadian Railway Museum, you can relive the magic of the holidays in the 1950s. To celebrate the occasion, the entire Exporail pavilion will recreate the electrifying atmosphere of half a century ago: Christmas decorations, miniature train layouts and windows filled with toys for girls and boys. But the star attraction will be the biggest of the little holiday trains: the one that ran through Eaton’s Toronto store, beginning in 1945.
As early as 1925, the already-famous Eaton’s was holding Santa Claus parades in Toronto and Montréal. In fact, Eaton’s had a department that worked year-round planning activities for its various stores across Canada as well as the parades that marked the Holiday Season. For the little train, the big store wanted only the best: nothing less than an exact replica of the 6400 locomotive that pulled the royal train during King George VI’s Canadian tour in 1939. That same year, the Toyland Express was exhibited at the World’s Fair in New York City. The CN 6400 was one of a group of five locomotives that were completed in 1936 and boasted a distinctive semi-streamlined design. You can see this piece of history, on a 1:5 scale, at Exporail starting December 3, 2005.Fascinating miniature train layouts
Throughout the Holiday Season, toys for girls and boys will fill the museum. In the 1950s, the best Christmas gift a boy could receive was without a doubt a miniature train layout. What could be more fascinating for a 10 year-old fellow than watching one of these trains make its way over hill and vale? At Exporail, kids of all ages can enjoy this sight to their hearts’ content! The miniature train room will be open, and the trains will be running from December 3. And for the girls?
While boys yearned for train sets, the doll topped every little girl’s wish list! It was, after all, the 50s, and gender roles were well defined! To give you an idea of what toy store windows looked like back in the day, Exporail has recreated a 50s-era window filled with presents for girls. This exhibition will give today’s kids a glimpse of the toys that entertained their parents and grandparents. A new exhibit: Streetcars from 1904 to 1932
Relive Montreal’s glorious streetcar era with photographic documents from the "Montreal Tramways Company". Did you ever wonder how people moved around the city, where could they go, how could they get there and what was the streetscape that they travelled through? Discover the answers to all these questions with a collection of evocative period photographs that bring the Montreal of days gone by to life. Untill spring 2008.| Exporail |
| • From November to April, Exporail is open weekends and holidays from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. • Christmas: the museum is open every day from December 27 to 30 and from January 2 to 6, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. |
André Quenneville
2007-12-09
