At the Railway Museum of Eastern Ontario in Smiths Falls, you can rent out one of three cabooses to stay the night.Taras Grescoe/The Globe and Mail
To the amusement, and occasional alarm, of my wife, I’ve become one of those living clichés, the middle-aged railway enthusiast. True, unlike some rail fans, I don’t spend my days in the basement tending to an ever-growing model railroad layout. But I’m pretty sure she has started to notice that every outing I propose involves at least one train ride.
So, on a recent long weekend, when I asked Erin if she wanted to join me on a road trip to a railway museum in Smiths Falls, Ont., I wasn’t surprised the response was a hard “no.” As for our eldest son, Desmond, his weekends are now fully booked with mall-hanging and movie-going with teenage friends. My only hope was Victor, who, at 10, can still see the wonder in a hulking steam locomotive. I suggested that the outing would help him with his fourth-grade project on the history of railways.
“Will we get to ride in a train?” he asked. I wasn’t sure, but when I told him we would be spending the night in a caboose, he was in.
There are several places across Canada where you can sleep in railcars – some with interiors that have been renovated almost beyond recognition – but the Railway Museum of Eastern Ontario has a unique appeal for train lovers. Its Airbnb site allows visitors to choose one of three minimally restored cabooses and spend the night on a siding next to a 1912 Canadian Northern Railway station.
The station building now doubles as the museum shop.Taras Grescoe/The Globe and Mail
Though it’s possible to get to Smiths Falls by train – the town is a stop on the Via Rail line between Toronto and Ottawa – we arrived by car, taking a leisurely route from Montreal, following Highway 6 southwest through the small towns and farmland of Lanark County.
In the cool confines of the station building, which now doubles as the museum shop, we were greeted by manager Nate Flinn, who showed us to our lodgings, a 1921 Canadian National Railway caboose, resplendent in coats of glossy orange paint and fitted out with a pair of single beds. (Parties of three can opt for the 1945 Canadian Pacific caboose, or the spacious 1967 CN caboose.) After we’d dropped our bags, Flinn invited us to join him for a lesson in the operation of a handcar, one of those hand-pumped contraptions used by railworkers to inspect the tracks.
“Handcars are super fun and only a little bit dangerous, which is a fun mixture!” said Flinn, as he invited Victor to climb aboard. “Just a warning: There’s a very friendly groundhog that loves to run out on the tracks while I’m doing this, and I’d rather not hit him. If you see him, give me the signal, and I’ll hit the brake.”
By putting all his weight onto the lever (and with more than a little help from Flinn) Victor was able to careen down the track on the handcar past the museum’s dental car, which the provincial government began running as a roving dentist’s office in remote communities in northern Ontario in the 1930s. (Victor returned safely, grinning widely; later I saw the groundhog, who, according to Nate, answers to the name “6591 Diesel-Electric Canadian Pacific Locomotive,” darting across a siding.)
Instead of a television, the caboose had a chessboard for guests.Taras Grescoe/The Globe and Mail
After walking to the centre of Smiths Falls for dinner on the patio of the Lockmaster’s Taphouse, a pub that overlooks the spillway of a former mill on the Rideau River, we returned to our caboose-hotel. For entertainment, there was no television, only a chessboard next to a (non-functional) potbelly stove, and a stack of rail-themed books. Victor clambered up a ladder into the cupola, the cozy turret the crew originally used to gaze along the track, and lost himself in the latest Dog Man book, while I dozed off reading about the building of the Kettle Valley Railway as I listened to the whistle of freight trains passing through the Canadian Pacific yards across town.
We awoke to the sound of birdsong. Our caboose was staged next to a small patch of marsh, favoured by mallards and Canada geese. While Victor made friends with Monty, the station cat, I took a shower in the museum building (overnight guests have access to a full kitchen and bathroom). Then we got a lesson in the art of telegraphy from volunteer Andrew Cameron. Nattily attired in a white shirt, vest and sleeve garters, Cameron spelled out Victor’s name in Morse code and let him operate the massive levers used to crank up the signals on the station’s gabled roof.
To putter around a railway museum – they are generally staffed by gentle, if detail-oriented, souls – is a relaxing way to spend a morning. In a former Canadian National coach, volunteer Gilbert Lacroix showed us a faithful representation, in HO scale, of the area around the Smiths Falls station as it would have appeared in 1955.
The 1921 Canadian National Railway caboose was fitted out with a pair of single beds.Taras Grescoe/The Globe and Mail
And museum president Tony Humphrey, who served as a Canadian Pacific engineer for 35 years, walked us through one of the museum’s star attractions, an 1899 Wagner Palace Car, originally built for the Intercolonial Railway in the Maritimes. Impeccably restored, the dining car is a confection of highly varnished mahogany with fruitwood inlay, velour drapes and fittings for kerosene lamps. It still welcomes guests for high tea. (It also plays host to Santa Claus, when at Christmas it becomes part of the museum’s annual North Pole Express train.)
We never did get a ride in a locomotive. As it turned out, that day their diesel-electric engine was scheduled for repainting. But my son declared himself satisfied. He’d filled our camera with photos of snow-plow trains, trackmobiles, velocipedes and other rolling-stock curiosities that would come in handy for his upcoming school presentation.
As for the accommodations, Victor awarded our night at the museum five stars, and ranked our stay in a stationary caboose in eastern Ontario one of the top 10 sleeps of his life.
More railcar sleepovers
The cabooses at the Railway Museum of Eastern Ontario in Smiths Falls offer a comfortable glamping experience (the bathrooms aren’t in the railcar, but in the adjoining station building). Caboose sleeps start at $221. rmeo.org
Ontario: South of Gravenhurst, in the the tiny town of Kilworthy, just off Highway 11, you can stay in an Ontario Northland caboose from 1977 with ensuite, kitchenette and loft bed for one child. From $240 a night. www.sidetrackedinmuskoka.ca
Alberta: In Mossleigh (about an hour outside Calgary) you can choose from one of five Caboose Cabins; a night in the 1920s Union Pacific caboose starts at $180. Excursions on historic trains are also available. aspencrossing.com/campground/caboose-cabins
Nova Scotia: In Tatamagouche (two hours north of Halifax), 10 railcars, staged outside a 19th-century Intercolonial Railway station, have been turned into deluxe suites with ensuites. An overnight stay in Boxcar “Jimmie” starts at $199. There’s live music in the station, and meals are served in a 1928 Canadian National dining car. www.tatatrainstation.com
The writer was a guest of the Railway Museum of Eastern Ontario, which did not review or approve this article. Stories are based on merit; The Globe does not guarantee coverage.