Galt Historic Railway Park was created about 2000 as a site for the preservation and display of items and artefacts which recapture the history of the railway in Southern Alberta.
The Galt Historic Railway Park & Railway Heritage Interpretive Centre, collects, preserves, restores, exhibits and interprets artifacts which represent the history and social impact of the “steam” and “coal” eras in southern Alberta, with emphasis on Galt Railway System (1885 – 1912) and the 1890 International Train Station Depot from Coutts, Northwest Territories / Sweetgrass, Montana.
From the Galt Historic Railway Park
Along with its historic railway station, the museum holds a collection of rolling stock and several little speeders, which were used for railway maintenance. When we visited, the rolling stock on display to that date were a CPR cattle car, number 277324, about a half dozen passenger, baggage and mail cars and the half dozen or so speeders. The star of the show is their 1941 CPR caboose, number 436986. In service with the CPR from 1941 to 1988, it is a steel framed standard cupola caboose, sided with wood. Some time after being retired, 436986 was put on display at the Museum of the Highwood in High River, being donated to Galt Historic Railway Park in 2011.
Following is text from a plaque mounted at the caboose. According to this plaque, 436986 was the
last of its kind, an assertion which we find unlikely. There were higher numbers in the sequence as well as a 437XXX series of wooden cabooses. Wooden cabooses were produced by the CPR until 1945.
CPR 436986
Built in October of 1941 this steel frame, wooden sheathed caboose was the last of its kind. Due to the safety of wooden cabooses and coal oil lamps, fire was a constant threat. Unfortunately because men lived in the crappy while travelling at the tail end of the train, accidents were not uncommon. Donated by the town of High River, this caboose was lifted onto a tilt and load truck owned by LA Towing and in November of 2011 it was placed on the display track at Galt Historic Railway Park. Restoration has replaced the leaking roof thanks to a grant from the Lethbridge and South Alberta Community Foundation, and a companion grant from the Benjamin Moore Paint company for exterior paint. Exterior sheathing of tongue and groove lumber for the cupola will be replaced. Thanks to Earl Stamm for his dedication to the restoration of this caboose.