Cranbrook History Centre

The Cranbrook History Centre, formerly the Canadian Museum of Rail Travel, or its brand name "Trains Deluxe", is located in Cranbrook, British Columbia, Canada, a city of about 25,000 on the west side of the Rocky Mountains. The city was developed by the arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in 1898, as the administrative centre for the railway's "Crowsnest Pass" route. This deep connection with the railway was the driving force behind the founding of the original museum and while the city is still a busy railway centre with Canadian and international freight traffic, the area's rich history extends far back before the railway's introduction and the museum has recently expanded the exhibits to reflect this. Cranbrook was incorporated as a city in 1905 when Cranbrook boomed into the major economic, and commercial centre of the Kootenays.

History

The museum, opened in 1977, originally focused entirely on restoring and displaying vintage passenger trains - the transcontinental "Deluxe Hotels-On-Wheels". Many of these original features are still present and train culture remains central to the museum, and town's, identity. The original museum emphasized deluxe railway passenger car design in various eras (1886, 1907, 1929, 1936) as well as deluxe railway hotel architecture.

The museum is an outgrowth of the Cranbrook Archives, Museum and Landmark Foundation, founded in 1976 with the initial goal of converting an out of service rail car into a local art gallery. The group then discovered that they had unknowingly purchased a dining car from the short-lived Trans-Canada Limited luxury rail line (1929-1931), and the focus of the project shifted to more extensive rail rehabilitation efforts. Founder Garry Anderson was awarded the Order of Canada in 2007 for his efforts in developing the museum.