Southern Alberta museum takes visitors on train ride through history

A museum in southern Alberta is giving people the opportunity to take a historic ride down the tracks of one of the country’s oldest railway stations.

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“People use different names for them they call them speeders, jiggers and track motor cars,” volunteer Michael Sawchyn said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "People use different names for them they call them speeders, jiggers and track motor cars," volunteer Michael Sawchyn said.

Sawchyn’s been volunteering to drive the speeder cars at Galt Historic Railway Park for the past three years.

Historically, they were used to transport work crews, inspect track and make repairs but all that eventually changed.

“They use trucks now,” he said. “They use anything from three-quarter tonnes and they use semis on the tracks now.”

It’s something Sawchyn knows quite well having worked on the railway using speeder cars for 37 years, before retiring 11 years ago.

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Once located on the border of Coutts, Alta. and Sweet Grass, Mont., the historic station next to the tracks, now sits just north of Stirling.

“It’s a representation of only three international ports of entry by rail that existed in Western Canada,” Bill Hillen, treasurer of the Great Canadian Plains Railway Society, said.

In fact, all you had to do was cross the dining room floor and on one side you were in Canada and on the other the United States.

Originally built in 1890 by Sir Alexander Galt, who is also known as the founder of Lethbridge.

The building was purchased in 2000 where it was moved to its current location and restored.

“The feel when you enter this building is what we wanted to capture and that was that you were stepping back in time,” Hillen said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "The feel when you enter this building is what we wanted to capture and that was that you were stepping back in time," Hillen said.

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Also included at the museum is a 1941 wooden caboose owned by the Canadian Pacific Railway, a 1918 Railway Post Office Car, new railway school display and many others.

Right now Hillen says they’re moving towards an official historic railway designation and have plans to expand the track for the speeder car.

The museum is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. with the speeder cars running every other Saturday.