The Toronto Railway Heritage Centre at Roundhouse Park is scheduled to open later in 2009. The museum is located in the old John Street Roundhouse, built by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1929 to service the CPR passenger trains using the new Union Station. The CPR abandoned the Roundhouse in 1988 and turned it over to the City of Toronto. For over twenty years, there were various schemes to build a museum but only in the last year or so have these plans come to fruition in time for the 80th anniversary of the Roundhouse.

Probably the most unique feature of the museum is its location on Bremner Blvd. between Simcoe and Rees Streets. Most rail museums in North America were built in isolated locations where land values were relatively inexpensive. There are noticeable exceptions: the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum, although the latter is located in a run-down and seedy part of town.

One of the feature attractions proposed for the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre at the John Street Roundhouse is a permanent operating miniature railway running through Roundhouse Park. While the track plan is still being finalized, an extensive operation is planned to bring animation and live steam to the museum site. Children and adults have always been fascinated by miniature trains, especially if they're large enough to ride on.

For the past several years, a temporary miniature railway has been one of the most popular features of the annual Doors Open event held at the Roundhouse during the last weekend in May. Toronto Railway Historical Association volunteers install track in an area near the turntable and visitors are able to ride the trains back and forth. This has proven to be one of the most popular and family friendly attractions at Doors Open.

2008 marks the 150th anniversary of the first Union Station in Toronto. This sesquicentennial will be commemorated by an illustrated lecture at 7 pm on June 23 at the Toronto Reference Library near Yonge and Bloor Streets. This presentation is co-sponsored by Heritage Toronto and the Toronto Public Library.

The railway era began in Toronto in 1853, when the first Ontario, Simcoe & Huron Ry. train departed from the city for Machell's Corners, thirty miles to the north. A year later, that community was renamed Aurora. The Toronto passenger station was located on the south side of Front Street about where the eastern entrance to Union Station is today. The Great Western Railway opened between Toronto and Hamilton in 1855 and built its own station at the foot of Bathurst Street.