Number 276    March 1962

Spotlight on People

Collector - Omer Lavallee, of Montreal is a collector of - among other things - full-size steam locomotives. He hasn't a trophy room big enough for his treasures at home so he helped establish a museum. The Canadian Rail Transportation Museum - a project of the Canadian Railroad Historical Association, located at Delson, Quebec - will officially open this year. Mr. Lavallee is chairman of the Museum's rolling stock committee and is a past president of the C.R.H.A. Some 48 units of historical motive power and rolling stock are presently in hand to be moved to the ten-acre Delson site "as facilities evolve". The Museum exhibits - steam locomotives, old railway coaches, and other pieces of historical rail equipment - have been rescued from oblivion by the C.R.H.A., to be preserved for future generations as souvenirs of the pioneer period in Canadian rail transportation.
 
Mr. Lavallee, 36, is assistant chief clerk in the office of the general paymaster at Canadian Pacific's Windsor Station headquarters, but collectors of railroadiana throughout the world know him best as a connoisseur whose love for vintage rail equipment is rivalled only by his intense interest in railway history. Slated for the Museum is Mr. Lavallee's proudest possession - the railway business car "Saskatchewan", which once belonged to Canadian Pacific's second president, Sir William Van Horne. At the scene of the driving of the railway's "last spike" at Craigellachie in November, 1885, the car has been preserved in the ornate splendor of its time. Collector Lavallee is pictured here in a proud, possessive pose alongside the 66-year-old former Maritime Coal, Railway and Power Company's steamer Number Five, which he acquired for the Museum last year. "We'll have a variety of old-time steamers on display at Delson eventually", says Mr. Lavallee. "But in my book, the old "Saskatchewan" with its interior "gingerbread" still takes the cake".