The little train at Bowness Park has been part of Calgary's history for over half a century and on Thursday it made its triumphant return to the tracks.
The Bowness Park miniature train was derailed when flood waters took over the northwest park three years ago and crews have been working to restore the area ever since.
“When you think about what this park looked like three years ago and how we’ve been able to relentlessly work to bring it back to this state, you can’t help but feel really proud of the volunteers, the neighbours and my colleagues at Calgary Parks,” said Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi.
A ceremony was held on Thursday and free rides were offered to visitors to celebrate the train's return and the park’s complete reopening.
“Big day for a small train but a small train that means a lot to the community and to this park and I’m so thrilled we got it back and I cannot believe the love and attention and meticulous care that these folks worked on the restoration on, I heard over 3000 person hours to redo this,” said Mayor Nenshi.
Some of the parts for the train are not manufactured anymore so many of the pieces had to be remade.
“Remaking history piece by piece is an extensive and challenging task,” said Anne Charlton, director of Calgary Parks. “The workmanship is incredible and the pride in work the restoration team took was clearly a labour of love.”
“They built this thing from the ground up because after the flood it was just a messed up pile of metal debris,” said Nenshi.
Allan Millard was a member of the restoration team and says he was glad to be a part of the project even though it was a ton of work.
“There was 1344 pieces in the brakes alone that we had to take apart, sandblast, paint, put back together and it just went on and on,” said Millard. “The sides were rusted out, we cut the sides out but there’s over 600 wells in each car to put the sides back together on so it was a massive job.”
The train also got a new engine and a paint job that was modelled after ‘The Canadian’, CP Rail’s luxury passenger train.
Millard says with improvements in technology, the restored train should last another 75 years or more.
“It’s nice to have it done and when it turns out like this it makes you feel pretty good. I had an excellent crew working for me and the painters and the people that did that kind of work just went over the top,” he said.
The project also included a kilometre of new track and a storage facility for the train.
Some of the funds for the restoration project were provided by the province as part of the Disaster Recovery Program.
For more information on the redevelopment of Bowness Park, click HERE.
