When the Vancouver Park Board announced last year the Stanley Park Train was not going to be able to operate for Halloween and Christmas, it said the issue was the train is “antique” and needs “highly-specialized service and maintenance.”
Technical Safety BC said in a statement there were a number of issues with the attraction including corrosion and damage to both the track and railcars, overgrown vegetation disrupting sight lines and decaying infrastructure, as well as a requirement for a full condition report from a third-party contractor certified to inspect this type of train.
But a farmer on Vancouver Island said he manages to keep his miniature train, the same make and model as the one in Stanley Park, on track.
Rob Galey runs Galey Farms in Saanich and he said while it takes work, keeping the train running is possible.
“It’s constant inspections,” he explained. “You gotta inspect the equipment all the time, you gotta look for any kind of corrosion… there’s so much you gotta look at.”
Galey added they do not have nearly close to the budget of the Vancouver Park Board and they only have five people who work on the locomotive.
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The Stanley Park Train is a slightly smaller, less common, track gauge than the one in Saanich, which could make obtaining parts more difficult.
But Galey said there are still hundreds of similar trains in North America, the manufacturer is still around and provides top-notch customer service.
“It’s almost identical except on a smaller scale,” Jim Sturgill Sr., a retired professional railroader told Global News about the Galey Farms model. “But other than that, everything else is exactly the same.”
Bright Nights in Stanley Park is the biggest fundraiser of the year for the BC Professional Firefighters’ Burn Fund.
However, this year, the event raised only half of what is normally brought in due to the train not be able to operate.
“What it really comes down to is keeping the maintenance up,” Jim Sturgill Jr., a Galey Farms train supervisor said. “If you don’t let it get to that advanced state of deterioration you can keep it going on a relatively normalized annual operating budget.”
The Vancouver Park Board did not provide a statement to Global News about the Stanley Park Train but a recent Request for Proposals on the city website sought to electrify the gas-powered locomotives.
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