Welcome to the official website of the Souris Railway Museum Inc. Located in the pretty little town of Souris, Manitoba. 

HISTORY  OF  SOURIS  RAILWAY  MUSEUM  INC.

In 2006, Kei­th Mar­ley of Minnedosa, a for­mer Souris C. P. R. teleg­ra­ph­er was trav­el­ling around search­ing for rail­road mem­o­ra­bil­ia. He dis­cov­ered a lot of arti­facts in his hunt. Orig­i­nal­ly his inten­tion was for this col­lec­tion to go to the Minnedosa Rail­way Muse­um, since they were in pos­ses­sion of the C. P. R. sta­tion and Kei­th had worked as a teleg­ra­ph­er in that sta­tion at one time.

How­ev­er, the Minnedosa Com­mit­tee seemed to be stalled with their project. Kei­th was anx­ious for action. Short­ly after, he dis­cov­ered an old rail­road pay­roll car in behind the “Two Red Barns” antique shop in Neep­awa. It was in rather decrepit con­di­tion. He con­tact­ed Roy Steven­son and Ferg Devins and the idea was born. “Could we trans­form this old car into a Rail­way Muse­um in Souris?”  Kei­th, Roy and Ferg, for­mer teleg­ra­phers in Souris, felt they had to spear­head this project or else this would become a lost part of Souris his­to­ry. After much search­ing for a site, Souris Town Coun­cil offered vacant prop­er­ty at 156–1st St. South in Souris and the result is what you see today. A nice lit­tle jew­el, and a tourist attrac­tion for our town. And more inter­est­ing fea­tures are yet to be added.

An ad hoc com­mit­tee of inter­est­ed cit­i­zens, along with for­mer rail­road­ers and descen­dants of rail­road­ers, have proud­ly financed and worked on this project. Dona­tions have come in from Ottawa to Cal­i­for­nia and many points in between, for which the com­mit­tee is thank­ful. Also pri­vate inter­est­ed cit­i­zens, local busi­ness­es and Ser­vice orga­ni­za­tions have con­tributed. With­out this help the project would have failed. To date the cost has been over $40,000.00. We have net­ted approx­i­mate­ly $12,000.00 in fundrais­ing events, and will need more funds as we progress with future excit­ing plans. Any­one inter­est­ed in donat­ing please con­tact us for infor­ma­tion. A tax deductible receipt is available.

In 2015 we replaced our exhibits, with col­lages depict­ing pic­to­r­i­al his­to­ries includ­ing the Round­house, The “Rip Track”, the Sta­tion, the his­to­ry of Souris ter­mi­nal, The sto­ry of how the “Non-Op” Rail­road­ers obtained the 40 hour work week for Canada.

Oth­er dis­plays show an orig­i­nal Dis­patch­ers phone and a work­ing Tele­graph key and Sounder, which con­verts this car into a small ver­sion of a rail­way sta­tion. This build­ing is

Cal­gar­y’s First CPR Station…note sim­i­lar­i­ty to Souris’ “Pay­roll car”

almost iden­ti­cal (on the exte­ri­or) to Cal­gar­y’s first rail­way sta­tion. This car is over 100 years old, with the orig­i­nal met­al under­frame, sit­ting on cement foundation.

Many arti­facts have arrived from the most unlike­ly donors. We have 26 orig­i­nal train orders dat­ed 1891 and 1892. A time table from 1895. (Very scarce arti­cles.)  In fact, these may be the only ones in exis­tence today. These arti­cles are safe­ly kept. Oth­er items of inter­est are Sec­re­tary’s min­utes from The Order of Rail­road Teleg­ra­phers, dat­ing as far back as 1907, and Order of Rail­road Train­men Sec­re­taries orig­i­nal min­utes from Souris ter­mi­nal in the ear­ly 1930’s. This project also plans a library and it will be a place for future gen­er­a­tions to research rail­way facts and history.

This muse­um held an “Open House” on June 11th, 2011 and was ful­ly oper­a­tional in August 2011. We expect to run from July to Sep­tem­ber each year. Admis­sion by dona­tion. Vol­un­teers are required as hosts/attendants. So if you want to help, please call us. Pri­vate show­ings may be arranged .

In 2014 we installed a diesel loco­mo­tive sim­u­la­tor. This item was donat­ed to us by The New York Air Brake Co. of Fort Worth, Texas. It was for­mer­ly leased by the C.P.R. in Cal­gary, for the train­ing and test­ing of Rail­way Engi­neers. Tim Janz, of Cal­gary, (for­mer­ly from Souris) was an instruc­tor on this sim­u­la­tor, and is respon­si­ble for obtain­ing it for Souris Rail­way Muse­um. It is par­tial­ly work­ing now, and we hope to have it in full oper­a­tion soon. We are told that there are only two of these oper­a­tional machines exist­ing in muse­ums in Cana­da. The oth­er one is in Rev­el­stoke, B.C.  In 2018 we replaced Sim­u­la­tor mod­el D4000 with new­er mod­el D5000, which was donat­ed to us by New York Air Brake Com­pa­ny, for which we are grate­ful­ly appre­cia­tive. Present­ly we are attempt­ing to add dif­fer­ent pro­grams, with more vari­ety. The Sim­u­la­tor is avail­able year round (health & weath­er per­mit­ting). You must phone and make an appoint­ment at least 2 days in advance. We take groups of 3 for a 30 minute run, for $20.00, or group of 2 per­sons for $15.00, or 1 per­son for $10.00, and this also includes a tour of the main muse­um as well.

Souris has many “Great Attrac­tions” includ­ing Canada’s longest Sus­pen­sion bridge. The largest agate and semi-pre­cious stone pit in North Amer­i­ca, Souris-Glen­wood Golf Course, (one of the most pic­turesque and chal­leng­ing cours­es in Man­i­to­ba), 3 muse­ums, name­ly Hill­crest with an Agri­cul­tur­al Muse­um and a CPR Caboose, The Plum, and the Souris Rail­way Muse­um, all with­in walk­ing dis­tance of each oth­er, an Art Gallery (new­ly opened 2015), beau­ti­ful nat­ur­al  50 acre Vic­to­ria Park, with a shel­tered Camp­ground, Swim­ming pool (with 3 slides), Kid­dies play­ground , Bird sanc­tu­ary, Look­out tow­er over­look­ing the park & town. In 2015 a group of vol­un­teers built a dandy skate­board park, north­west of the schools. Fish­ing at the dam in Souris Riv­er is avail­able also. There are many oth­er inter­est­ing sites and eat­ing places, and a few fine murals by local artist Ruth Martin.

We have come a long way since our idea of The Souris Rail­way Muse­um in 2007.