Cornwall Street Railway – the Insurance Company’s Streetcars tells the fascinating story of the electric transit services provided in the eastern Ontario city by the Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada, which owned the system from its inception in 1886 until the passenger transit facilities were taken over by the municipality in 1970 and the freight switching services were absorbed into the Canadian National Railways system in 1971.

The book, originally prepared by Omer Lavallée and Anthony Clegg to honour the memory of Charles P. DeRochie, was essentially completed in the early 1990s, but publication was delayed due to Mr. Lavallée’s untimely death in 1992. It has now been brought to fruition by Railfare*DC Books and has been augmented by a selection of illustrations that were previously unavailable.

Those who remember the Cornwall Street Railway will be glad to have this reminder of the trolleys, electric trolleycoaches, and electric switching locomotives that formerly served the city, while the serious students of municipal history and railway operations will be pleased to have a record of the well-known Canadian insurance company’s not so well-known operations in the transit field.

The book consists of 102 pages with over 160 photographs. There are five maps which record the growth of the community and another which shows from whence came the Cornwall Street Railway equipment.