Opening Windows to Transit Heritage – We Need Your Help !

Our Board of Directors and volunteers are continually working to fulfill our mission – To be the voice and resource for Canada’s transit heritage by preserving and promoting transit history. We are dedicated to fostering partnerships, delivering value and inspiring innovation.

To that end, we are now embarking on our most ambitious project to date, the CTHF Online Archive, to further fulfill our national mandate. Whether it be academic research, support to transit industry participants or personal interest, the intent is that this website becomes the primary resource for Canadian transit history.

The Foundation has amassed a considerable collection of historic material. Additional material resides in the collections of individuals and company files. The result is that most of this content is currently unavailable to interested parties and the material is at risk of disposal unless action is taken to preserve it.

In addition to preserving and digitizing the historic material the CTHF Online Archive project will enable us to handle future archival donations and assist other organizations to preserve their collections.

We have already made considerable progress on this project over the past 18 months, including ongoing culling, cataloguing and scanning our existing collection, hiring a summer student for the 2024 season, selection of a cloud-based online digital archives platform and creating an online archive website to be available to the public. During 2025 we plan to hire another summer student and launch our online archive when sufficient material has been uploaded to it. We will happily notify you when we cross this important threshold.

This project is an important strategic initiative of the Foundation and will be ongoing. As such, it will require sustainable funding and volunteers to make it happen.

During 2025, to continue our good progress to date, we will require $14,000 of additional external funding. Total anticipated costs are $20,000 and we have again been successful in receiving a Federal employment grant of $6,000 as partial support for hiring a summer student.

How You Can Help

As a registered charity and not-for-profit charity organization, we are a volunteer group with relatively limited revenue sources. We are asking you to assist us in two ways: financially, and as a volunteer.

You can make a financial contribution at the CTHF website, where there is information about making either an online or offline donation. Upon receipt of your donation, we will promptly issue an income tax receipt for
all donations of $25 or more.

As a volunteer, by offering your services to help document, scan and upload our archival materials. Your involvement can be online in many cases, and we would be delighted to have your support. If you are interested in participating with us as a volunteer, please let us know by contacting us by email at info@transitheritage.ca.

We look forward to hearing from you!