Following on Ontario’s successful school rail car project, Newfoundland started a “School on Wheels” program where a mobile school traveled in a rail car and spent time in Newfoundland’s remote communities throughout the school year. “The School Car” by Randy P. Noseworthy tells the story.
Starting in 1926, Ontario deployed a total of seven school cars on Canadian National Railways, Canadian Pacific Railways, and the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario (today’s Ontario Northland) railroads to bring schools to remote communities. The cars would be spotted on sidings for several days and the teacher lived on the car and delivered lessons to local children. They would be left with exercises to do while the school was away. The program was considered a success and went on for a total of 39 years.
Newfoundland in the 1930s had a lot of very remote communities. The Newfoundland Railway ran across the spine of the island and was the only connection for many, many communities until the construction of the Trans-Canada Highway. The Department of Education worked with the government-owned railway to set up a rail car as a school in 1936. The powerful Anglo-Newfoundland Development Company (A.N.D.) donated their rarely-used private car Shawnawdithit for the cause, and the railway refitted it for school use by installing a table and chairs, and living quarters for the teacher.
“The School Car” is meticulously researched. The author interviewed the first teacher, Frank Moores, who provided a tremendous amount of detail on the car, the process, and many memories. Many former students were also interviewed from the 7 or 8 communities served by the school car over the six years it operated.
The book is richly illustrated with photographs of the car at various locations, the teachers, the students, the tiny stations, and even the students as they looked when the book was being written.
One of many facts I didn’t know was that temporary sidings were constructed to house the school car, but a switch wasn’t put in for the siding. The section crew would bend the main line over into the siding for the car to be parked, then put the rails back once the car was in the siding. The same procedure was done to remove the car a few weeks later.
This book is a “must have” for fans of the Newfoundland Railway, and indeed I believe many people interested in the history of Newfoundland will enjoy it.
You can borrow a digital copy of the book on Archive.org or try to find a used copy on Amazon.ca or elsewhere.
wow that is amazing