Kamloops Heritage Railway reaches junction, switches track in preparation for new park

KAMLOOPS — Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Kamloops Heritage Railway society has been working behind the scenes to make improvements to their yard located near Pioneer Park. After a couple of years of renovations and planning, the society is almost ready to show off the new Heritage Railway Park.

“This is the little mini-train we’re creating,” Norman Glass, Kamloops Heritage Railway president explains. “We hope to be able to haul passengers from our location here at Pioneer Park down to the Sandman Centre.”

Image Credit: CFJC Today

The Kamloops Heritage Railway Society is gearing up for spring with a new focus. Due to track availability issues, the Spirit of Kamloops steam locomotive 2141 likely won’t be taking to the rails around the city. Instead, KHR is hoping to draw people to the newly built Kamloops Heritage Railway Park.

“We no longer have track time because of the coal trains,” Glass says. “Our plan is to educate and entertain the citizens of Kamloops by providing them a variety of railway history tours.”

This winter, volunteers have spent countless hours renovating the cars KHR has lined up in the park. There’s an old cattle car, a caboose and the old passenger car that was moved onto the static track in January 2021. They’ll all play a role in the tours the society has planned for this spring.

“We start off by showing people what transportation was like on a stagecoach — for instance, a trip to Cache Creek might have taken three or four days on a stagecoach. And then we explain how the trains developed Canada, allowing for the transportation of passengers and goods year-round. Mail delivery was better, freight delivery was improved. Rather than take months to get across Canada, you could do it in a week-and-a-half to two weeks.”

KHR President Norman Glass shows off the inside of the caboose at the new Kamloops Heritage Railway Heritage Park. Image Credit: CFJC Today

Glass is also hoping teachers from SD73 take advantage of the newly renovated passenger car. KHR has created an old classroom car, like the ones that travelled across Canada and were in use up until the 1960s.

“Children would have attended school during the day, and adults would have attended school at night, because at most of those locations the individuals did not speak English,” Glass explains. “They could learn English and mathematics or whatever it took to become a citizen of Canada. And in the other half of the car would have been the teacher’s residence.”

In this case, the other half of the car is dedicated to a scale model of Kamloops, circa the mid-20th Century.

A scene from the scale model of Kamloops in the new Kamloops Heritage Railway Park. Image Credit: CFJC Today

“This was the CP station, and that’s where London Drugs is, for instance, right now,” Glass explains. “And of course where that sawmill is, is Pioneer Park.”

Kamloops Heritage Railway is hosting an open house on Saturday, April 16 from 10:30 am until 4:00 pm, complete with a food truck, vintage cars and tours of the revamped site.

The society is also in need of folks willing to put in some time to help the new heritage park shine.

“Being that we’re totally changing our operation from a mobile activity to static display, we do require a different group of volunteer workers,” Glass says.

If you’re interested in helping out, you can contact Kamloops Heritage Railway on their website.