Archives Centre
Canadian Railroad Historical Association (CRHA) Archives and Documentation Centre
The archives acquires physical and virtual media relating to Canadian railway history, conserves these for posterity, and promotes their use by making them known and accessible to students, historians, researchers, journalists, and other interested people.
The CRHA Archives and Documentation Centre houses more than 321 private archival fonds and collections from railway companies (Canadian Pacific, Canadian National, Grand Trunk, etc.), manufacturers (Montreal Locomotive Works, Canadian Car & Foundry, etc.), important people (Charles M. Hays, William C. Van Horne, etc.), former employees, and railway history buffs. These preserved documents illustrate in particular the technological genius, the history of the stations, the life of the workers, the growth of the companies, the development of the regions; telling the history of transportation in Canada from 1780 to the present day.
In addition, the Centre holds a documentation section of more than 10,000 books and magazines on the history of rail transportation in Canada from 1773 to the present, making it the largest specialized collection of its kind in Canada.
The CRHA Archives and Documentation Centre currently houses (March 31, 2021)
| 1,619.68 | Linear metres of textual records |
| 35,6 | MB of digital text documents |
| 1,043.537 | Iconographic documents |
| 209,261 | Maps and drawings |
| 361 | Hours of sound recordings |
| 4,142 | Hours of moving images |
| 12,161 | Books and magazines |
Many of our archival documents are also disseminated on our various platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, HistoryPin and Twitter! Follow us so as not to miss anything!
Noteworthy:
- 1996: Mark Greenwald Collection is certified as cultural property by the Government of Canada.
- 2008: The CRHA Archives and Documentation Centre is officially recognized as an accredited archival centre by Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ).
- 2014: Canadian Pacific Railway Company Fonds is certified as a cultural property of outstanding significance and national importance by the Government of Canada.
- 2017: Publication of the book Bibliothèques québécoises remarquables in which a chapter is dedicated to the CRHA Archives and Documentation Centre.
- 2018:
- Canadian Pacific Railway Company Fonds is inscribed on the Canadian Commission for UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.
- The CRHA is awarded the “Significant Achievement Award – Archives” from Heritage Rail Alliance for preserving CP Archives.
