For seven years, 40 men have been volunteering for the Huntsville/Lake of Bays Railway Society simply for the love of it.

While many hail from Huntsville, including Russ Nicholls, who looks at his volunteer work at the Rotary Village Station as a labour of love, more than a dozen of these dedicated volunteers drive from afar to the grounds of the Portage Flyer Steam Train throughout July and August, all for the same reason: they love steam.

Jobs are shared between the volunteers, which consists of engineers, conductors and station masters. However, there is one job that never goes unnoticed, and that is the sending of telegrams. Eighteen of the 40 volunteers are retired railway telegraphers trained to use the Morse Code, a form of communication invented in the early 1840s in which the letters of the alphabet are represented by combinations of dots and dashes. Sending telegrams has become a hit among children who visit the site of the Portage Flyer.

“This is absolutely what I love to do,” said Nicholls in regard to being one of the volunteers in charge of sending telegrams. “The kids love to see those telegrams get sent off and when we explain how it works, they’re really quite intrigued.”

Nicholls said that he underwent six months of intensive training at the WX Tower in Welland to learn the Morse Code. Upon completing his training, he was hired as a telegraph operator for the New York Central Railway in 1949. Back in those days, he said, those who trained as telegraphers knew that well-paying jobs lay ahead. But in 1962, the Morse Code was no longer being utilized, as centralized train control came into play and the railway system was then controlled by one man.

“The community at large should be made aware of the number of volunteers we have registered in the rail division,” noted Nicholls. “Many of these gentlemen travel great distances at their own expense just to provide the service for their scheduled assignment. It’s a joy to watch them all performing their respective tasks with our guests. Some of these fellows haven’t sent a telegram since 1962, so it’s interesting to watch them in action. It’s an art that young people are not learning and probably will never learn. It’s historic.”

Forming in the early 1980s, Nicholls explained that the railway society wanted to construct and operate a tourist steam railway in Huntsville as a way to preserve the area’s history of steam transportation.

In 1998, the railway society merged and began operating under Muskoka Heritage Place. That same year, the Rotary Club of Huntsville donated $100,000 to go toward the building of the station (located adjacent to the centennial centre), which was intended to be a tourist attraction. When construction was completed, the implementation committee played a key role in determining what to do with the railway museum.  “(When construction started) somebody suggested having a bay window,” explained Nicholls. “I said, ‘If we’re going to have a bay window there has to be a reason for it.’ When there is a bay window (in a train station) it’s because there used to be a telegraph office. At the time, I belonged to the Morse Telegraph Club and was able to find a roster of all clubs in Canada and the United States. I picked out 21 operators who lived within an hour and a half from here and 18 came at my request.”

In 2001, after bringing the Portage Flyer home from the Pinafore Park Railway in St. Thomas, where it had been resting since being sold in 1961, visitors have been able to enjoy a one-kilometre ride along the track that overlooks the Muskoka River and Fairy Lake.

All in all, Nicholls notes, the volunteers go to great lengths to ensure that operation at the Rotary Village Station continues. He says without them, the railway would not be able to function.

“I come here because steam is my trade,” said John Vincent, who travels from Lindsay to Huntsville on Wednesdays to volunteer at the station. “I was here before the railway even started and after my contracted ended I decided to stay just because I love it.”