For years, Rhéaume Laplante worried that Ottawa's last remaining 600-series streetcar would never leave storage again. Now, Streetcar 696 has found a new home at the Railway Museum of Eastern Ontario in Smiths Falls, where restoration efforts are set to resume immediately.
A New Chapter for Streetcar 696
The retired OC Transpo auto body technician and dozens of volunteers had spent thousands of hours restoring Streetcar 696 before the project stalled in 2023. At that time, the City of Ottawa moved the car into locked storage near Navan after OC Transpo required its garage space back. Once relocated, volunteers were no longer allowed to work on the streetcar.
Now, the historic vehicle is finally getting a second life. Museum officials say restoration work will begin right away to get it running on rails again. “It's a weight off my shoulders,” Laplante said. “Now we have the light at the end of the tunnel.”
Museum's Role in Preservation
Tony Humphrey, president of the Railway Museum of Eastern Ontario board, said the museum began discussions this spring after learning the restoration project had stalled. “We don't want historical objects that people should see locked away in a garage,” he said. Humphrey noted that the museum had officially taken ownership of the streetcar from the City of Ottawa and planned to continue the restoration alongside many of the volunteers who spent years rebuilding it.
When museum representatives first saw the car in storage in April, Humphrey said they were “astounded by the beauty of it” and “the amazing condition the car has been put in by the volunteers.” The plan is to eventually have visitors riding the streetcar around museum property, with hopes of having it moving around the grounds by fall, initially pulled by a locomotive while crews continue work on its traction motors.
Restoration Progress
“It's about 90 per cent complete,” Humphrey said. “It's an amazing job they have done on it.” The move to Smiths Falls may take the streetcar outside Ottawa, but Humphrey emphasized that the project remains tied to the capital. “Eighty-five per cent of the people coming to our museum are from Ottawa,” he said. “What an ideal place to display it.”
Streetcar 696 is believed to be Ottawa's last remaining 600-series streetcar, a relic from the electric rail era that began in 1891 and ended when streetcar service ceased in 1959. For Laplante, seeing the streetcar finally move again after years in storage is emotional. “It's a great feeling to say that it will be a running car,” he said. Longtime volunteer George Rubli, who worked on the project for roughly 25 years, said the move gave the streetcar something it had been missing for years: a future.
