Members of Cloverdale’s Heritage Rail are hopeful they’ll soon recieve some very good news.
The Fraser Valley Heritage Railway Society (FVHRS) has crossed all their t’s and dotted all their i’s on contracts with B.C. Hydro and Southern Railway of British Columbia. Now they are just waiting patiently for the two companies to punch out their own contract details. Once everything is signed, Heritage Rail will be allowed to start running their trains up to Sullivan Station again.
“We’re waiting for some good news about when we can get back on the mainline,” said John Sprung, chairman of the FVHRS board of directors. “We’re waiting for them to make a decision. It’s out of our control.”
He said Southern Railway owns the freight rights for the old B.C. Electric Railway track and has a long-term lease on it. Hydro owns the passenger rights—hence the need for the two to sign some paperwork, since FVHRS will run passenger service on the rail line that Southern leases. FVHRS recently signed a five-year corridor consent agreement with Hydro, which gives Heritage Rail the right to run a passenger train to Sullivan.
He said once they are allowed to use the mainline again, they’ll start planning their Halloween train. Because they need to plan for several weeks in order to get the Halloween train on the tracks, they'll need to know within about three weeks if they can run on the mainline again. The mainline is integral to what FVHRS offers families for their Halloween special train.
“To do it properly, we need to run to Sullivan,” Sprung explained. “We need the mainline. It works well with things to do in the car while we're going there and coming back.”
He said if they don’t get notified of mainline access within that time frame, then the Halloween train will not run. And that only has to do with the time needed to plan the event.
“We fully expect to get (access), it’s just a question of when,” Sprung added. “But (the Halloween train) is a wonderful event. A lot of people look forward to it and it’s always a lot of fun. I’m never sure who has more fun, our guests or all of our volunteers.”
He did, however, note the railway’s Christmas train and adventure is good to go as the railway doesn’t use the mainline for their Christmas train. The Restoration Car Barn becomes Father Christmas's workshop and FVHRS only runs the Christmas train down their Cloverdale spur. Planning for Christmas in Cloverdale, as it was in 1924, is already underway.
“We’re very hopeful that things are going to go well and we’ll be back on the line very quickly,” Sprung explained. “But it does take time. There are a number of steps involved.”
Cloverdale Station Summer Music Festival
This was also the first year the railway held a summer music series. The Cloverdale Station Summer Music Festival hit the platform at the Heritage Rail train station at the end of June and runs until Sept. 1.
“We’d like to thank the City of Surrey and its Cultural Grants program,” noted Sprung. “They helped sponsor our summer music festival this year.”
Sprung said the music fest has been a big hit and has attracted more visitors to Cloverdale Station this summer. (Sprung also hinted the festival will likely be back next year.) Twenty performances were spread out over 10 weeks, with each band/artist playing two sets, one at 11 a.m. and one at 1 p.m., on each Saturday and Sunday.
Remaining performances for the Cloverdale Station Summer Music Festival include:
Aug. 24: The Shannon Lee Quartet
Aug. 25: Peace Arch Chorus
Aug. 31: Mark Hildebrand
Sept. 1: Kat Moon Band
The Heritage Railway Adventure experience is available eight times per weekend, four times on Saturday and four times on Sunday.
The Fraser Valley Heritage Railway Society operates the railway out of Cloverdale Station and the Restoration Car Barn at Hwy 10 and 176A Street, in Surrey—which they now call the Cloverdale Heritage Railway Campus.
For more information on the Heritage Railway Adventure, the summer concert series, the Halloween or Christmas trains, or to buy tickets, visit fvhrs.org.
