Nov. 26/99
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Contact UsA Railway Museum-in-the-Makingby David Brison
Gary
Cooke, 49, from Sharbot Lake, has worked for CP Rail for 29 years. For
most of that time he has been collecting anything he can get his hands
on. He has assembled an amazing collection of railway items; for
instance, he has around 150 kerosene lanterns (switch, caboose, hand),
4 motor cars that crews used to travel about on the lines, 14,000
handwritten time cards (dating from the 1880s), CP belt buckles, brass
locks, old Morse code equipment, telephones used by station agents,
silver dining car trays, crossing signals, and numerous other items.
Gary's Sharbot Lake collection rivals the Smith Falls Railway Museum.
Gary Cooke displaying time cards
Many of the items in Gary's collection are displayed in a basement room
in his house -- a room which had to be enlarged to accommodate the
overflow. Each piece is either carefully displayed on shelves, hung
from the ceiling, or placed on the floor (Gary dusts everything by
hand). There is a massive scale in the middle of the room, built in
1910, that was used to weigh railway cars. It sat inside the train
station -- connected to a mechanism under the tracks. I asked how he
got the scale. "I asked for it and they gave it to me. It would have
gone to scrap if I hadn't taken it", he said. He now estimates that
this is one of the most valuable single items in his collection.
A "Convertible" Motor Car
A Hardtop Motor Car
My first glimpse of the Gary Cooke museum-in-the-making was from the
Sharbot Lake High School parking lot. My first reaction was, "How can
there be a railway track running so close behind the school?" In his
yard, he has around 200 feet of track which he has tastefully used to
display his collection of motor cars, crossing signals, switching
devices, old station baggage carts, switches and much more. It looks
exactly like a real railway track, complete with a crossing.
The convertible car provided the crew no protection against the wind
chill, according to Gary, and was replaced by a hardtop. Both were
driven by motor -- Gary is looking for the older style jigger type
which was hand powered to add to his collection.
He tells an interesting story about the use of hand powered and
motorized cars. "CP rail would buy the frame (hand powered) and the
section foreman had to buy the motor. He would put it in the car and
when he went to another assignment, he would ask the new foreman if he
wanted to buy it -- if not he took it with him. The foreman didn't have
to buy it, but if he didn't his crew would have to hand pump the car to
go to work". Gary has always been fascinated by
the railway. He grew up in Sharbot Lake in a house next to the tracks
and used to watch the steamers and the road crews at work. His first
job on the railway was tearing up the tracks on the old K & P from
Mississippi to Sharbot Lake. He started collecting about 20 years ago.
His fellow workers on the line used to ask what he wanted that "stuff"
for, but they now realize that he is on to something and will look out
for items for him.
A Model Station Next to the Tracks
Gary would like to set up a museum when he retires from the railway
(which could be as early as next April). Ideally, he would like to have
an old railway station to display his collection for the public. He
thinks it would be nice if it could be somewhere on the old CP rail
line -- maybe in Sharbot Lake.
He has assembled a unique collection -- of interest not only to railway
buffs, of which there is a large number, but also to those of us who
love the trains and wish we could have travelled on the K & P
through Oso, Clarendon Station, Robertsville, Mississippi Station, Snow
Road, and on up to Renfrew. He helps to recreate the golden days of
railway.
