Stittsville Ontario - The railway no longer runs through Stittsville, like it did for 120 years until the year 1990 but you can see what the railway line and its engines and the train station were like during these years of railway activity in Stittsville by dropping into the Stittsville branch of the Ottawa Public Library on Stittsville Main Street this month.
 
The Art Space Wall gallery at the library branch this month is featuring a collection of photographs related to Stittsville's railway history as displayed by the Goulbourn Township Historical Society.
 
And it's not only framed photographs on the wall.
 
There are also two Canadian Pacific Railway passenger tickets on exhibit in the glass display case associated with the Art Space Wall.
 
One of the tickets dates to 1930 and is made out in the name of Aalberry Mattingly, son of the Stittsville section foreman.
 
The second ticket has no name or date associated with it but is a Canadian Pacific Railway ticket.
 
The display case also includes a brief description of "Remembering Our Railway," a booklet produced by the Stittsville historian, the late Grace Thompson, dealing with the history of the railway in the Stittsville area.
 
The railway photographs on display at the Art Space Wall cover from the railway's earliest days in Stittsville through to the passing of the last passenger train through the village in January 1990.
 
These include a view of the railway tracks and the surrounding area as seen from the water tower that was at the Stittsville station, an 1895 view of the initial Stittsville station which was located adjacent to what is now Stittsville Main Street, an 1895 photograph of the section men who worked from Stittsville, a 1919 photograph of the newer railway station, located where the building is now situated at Village Square Park in Stittsville, a 1910 photograph of a steam train at Stittsville, a 1949 photograph of a steam locomotive at the Stittsville station, a 1965 photograph of a train passing through Stittsville, a 1972 photograph of two trains passing on the double tracks at Stittsville, a 1973 photograph of the Wakefield steam locomotive moving along the tracks at Stittsville, and a 1990 photograph of the last passenger train going through Stittsville, taken by John Bottriell.
 
The photographs come from a Mattingly Collection, the Bill Linley/Bruce Chapman Collection, William Alexander, the Goulbourn Township Historical Society Archives, G. Argue (in the Historical Society Archives), and the Canadian Pacific Archives.

John Curry.