Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1926-1991 (predominant 1926-1957) (Creation)
Level of description
Collection
Extent and medium
4 cm of textual records
169 photographs
6 photographic negatives
Context area
Name of creator
Administrative history
From 1926 to 1967, the railway car schools served children in remote parts of northern Ontario, where the settlements were too small or too temporary for the construction of a regular school to be practical.
In 1926, the Ontario government conducted a two-car pilot run of the railway car schools. The rail cars were donated by the Canadian National Railway and the Canadian Pacific Railway and were converted into schools by the Department of Education (later called the Ontario Ministry of Education). Teachers Walter H. McNally and Fred Sloman taught 82 children during this pilot run, stopping at 14 points along two rail lines. Of these children, 57 had never before attended school, and only 4 spoke English.
The railway school cars were considered an immediate success. During the two-year pilot run, these school cars had 100% attendance and the children attending them progressed rapidly, completing on average three weeks of schoolwork every week. Following the success of the pilot run, the railway car school program was expanded. Two new rail cars were added in 1928, with an additional two in 1935 and one in 1938. At its peak in the 1940s, the Department of Education operated seven railway car schools serving over 200 pupils, with four cars operating on Canadian National Railway lines, two cars on Canadian Pacific Railway lines, and one car operating on the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway.
Each railway car school served 5 or 6 settlements and travelled about 150 miles each month. The school cars would stop at each point of call for 4 to 8 days, and the teacher would assign pupils homework to complete between calls. Although the railway school cars were not limited to a specific set of stops and would change location as the settlements changed, many children nonetheless travelled great distances by foot, horse, snowshoe, or even canoe to meet the school car.
The railway car schools contained a schoolroom as well as living quarters for the teacher and his family. The schoolroom was equipped with two blackboards, roll-down maps, a globe, desks, school books and general supplies, and a small lending library with titles for both children and adults.
The railway car schools would also operate night schools for their pupils’ parents, teaching reading, writing, and math. Many of these parents did not speak English and could not read. For railway employees, these night classes offered them the opportunity for advancement in the rail company, as they could now perform functions such as writing a train order.
As the number of pupils attending the railway car schools decreased, so too did the number of railway school cars in operation. Ontario’s last railway car school closed in 1967.
Repository
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Content and structure area
Scope and content
The collection contains materials related to the Railway Car Schools which operated in remote parts of Ontario between 1926 and 1967. The collection contains correspondence, memoranda, reports, articles and newspaper clippings, museum and exhibit materials, and photographs. The collection has been arranged into 9 series.
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
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Allied materials area
Existence and location of originals
The materials in this collection are copies obtained from other archives. Original documents may be found at Exporail, the Canadian Railway Museum (Canadian Pacific Railway records), Library and Archives Canada (Canadian National Railway records), and the Archives of Ontario.
Existence and location of copies
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Description control area
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Dates of creation revision deletion
Created by Cassidy Foxcroft, April 2018.