We used to make things in this country, #315 Treco Furniture

 Designed in the 1960s by Giovanni Maur, an Italian designer in Quebec for the company Treco, the moulded ABS furniture was as futuristic as the year 2000! 20 years after its namesake date, I can find very little online about the former Montreal company. 

Today the items command a good price when you can find them, I still do see the stacking chair appearing occasionally in antique stores....

Firebee Lancaster

Larry Milberry, 60 Years, the RCAF and CF Air Command,CanAv Books, 1984

Harold Skaarup

In the mid and late fifties the RCAF was testing with air to air missiles, first with the Canadian-designed Velvet Glove and proceeding to the American Sparrow series. The original plan was to develop as armament for the Avro Arrow but when the program was cancelled in February, 1959 the program continued using the CF100, Sabre and other planes as launch platforms. Below, a 1960 photo of a formation with two USN Demons and one of the two Lancasters outfitted to carry and launch the Firebee target drones.

 There is something ironic about 15 year old obsolete bombers plugging away working on the future, when Canada had already scrapped its best hope in the Arrow.

 The Sparrow program was cancelled in 1961, Lancaster KB851 was scrapped soon after and the cockpit section of KB848 is currently on display at The National Air and Space Museum in Ottawa.

Chevrolet Advanced Design pick up

1951 at a guess? They didn't change much from 1947-1955. Still at work and looking good...

 

Little Winner grader with Fordson power

 

I wonder why this arrangement didn't catch on...

Spreadmobile!

 I want one!  Produced by the Shapiro Curtain Corporation of New York in the mid sixties.

Superb Four

 The Superb was an all alloy OHC inline four designed and built by a W. F. Hooper in 1920. It was shown at the London motorcycle show in the hopes of finding financing for production but he was not successful. He rode the single prototype as his transportation around London for several years.

Cybermotorcycle

Flckr

Short Sunderland

 A well worn Sunderland is dragged ashore and serviced during WW2. It looks like it's due for a repaint!

Oddball Mikuni

As a the curator of the "Progress is Fine" living Museum of Dead Carburetors, I'm pretty sure what this carb was mounted on originally, but can anyone guess what bike this 26mm Mikuni is from?

 

And the answer is Kawasaki F7 175. Rotary disc engine so there is no provision for an aircleaner tube connection, resulting in a very short carb!. (VectorWarbirds got it right, see comments)

RG500 trike...

 The RG500 Gamma is a 2 stroke square four GP replica sold by Suzuki in '86-87, quite rare then and very collectable now. 
This picture appeared online when the internet was young, no explanation, description or excuse was provided. Heresy!

What's in a name?

The Gulf, Mobile and Ohio was created by the merger in 1940 of the Mobile and Ohio RR and the Gulf, Mobile and Northern. A further acquisition in 1947 of the Alton Railway made a single system from Chicago to the Gulf at Mobile and New Orleans. Looking at the track map, they seem to have missed Ohio by about 250 miles. 

 As the 1951 photo above hints, the new railway was quick to convert from steam to diesel power, having totally phased out steam by 1949 with the acquisition of 244 diesel locomotives between 1943 and '49.

The railway merged with the Illinois Central in 1972, which was then bought up by Canadian National in 1998.

Robert G Lewis, A Handbook of American Railroads, Simmons and Boardman, 1951