The Manitoba Children’s Museum is housed in the oldest surviving train repair facility in Manitoba. The building was constructed in 1889 by the Northern Pacific and Manitoba Railway Company. It originally included a machine and blacksmith shop, engine house and a ten-stall roundhouse and turntable.

The museum building is the only surviving building of an original complex that included two roundhouses, freight sheds, an elegant hotel and a large station. The industrial site became Canadian National’s East Yards before the complex was transformed into The Forks. Members of various railway craft unions worked at the East Yards for Northern Pacific, Manitoba Canadian Northern and Canadian National railways. Engines and cars entered the engine house on tracks positioned over pits. Repairs were undertaken from beneath the engines and cars and were then passed onto the turntable to be pivoted on to one of the ten roundhouse stalls.

After 1909 the building fell into disuse. Canadian National locomotive repairs were undertaken increasingly at the Fort Rouge, Transcona, and Symington shops. However, the building continued to be used in a variety of capacities until the 1960s.

In 1993-94 the building was renovated to become the current home of the Manitoba Children’s Museum.