The Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore
(But it doesn’t matter!)
The train station was at one time a vital part of most communities. It housed offices for the stationmaster, provided sidings for rolling stock, maintenance and fuel or water for the locomotives and shelter for the train crews. For the passengers, stations were where you shipped parcels, bought money orders, sent telegrams, picked up mail or loaded farm produce. It was also the place you bought tickets for a trip around the world or to the next town and where you waited for the train to take you there.
They were magical places and some of us have fond memories of standing outside of one watching the passenger train or Dayliner roll up to the platform. What excitement! To hear the steam whistle blast or the “bomp bomp’ of that stainless steel self-propelled dayliner as it approached.
Train stations are mostly history now and trains rarely stop around the Pass anymore. At least not passenger trains. You may be lucky enough to see 2816; the old 4-6-4 Royal Hudson steam train pass through on an exclusive sweep for top end tourists. Or even those vintage 1950’s cat-faced restored diesels pulling a train of luxury private 1920’s restored cars. Other than that it’s all freight trains with no reason to stop.
And the stations? Well most of the stations have gone the way of the dinosaur. Wiped out, levelled, burned down and hauled away. But some have been saved. It wasn’t until 1987 that The Heritage Railway Station Protection Act was passed which heralded a new dawn for station preservation. The stories of saved stations are few and far between but somehow make the heart glad.
Perhaps the station closest to my heart that has been rescued is that of Fernie’s beautiful Van Horne station. Built in 1908, after the famous fire of that year, it was the third station to stand at that site and is the only survivor of a type of first class Van Horne mountain style station designed for the Crowsnest Route. Passenger service to it ended in 1964 and this magnificent building was left to slowly run down. Word on the street was that it could be torn down at any time as there always seemed to be break-ins and liability issues.
In 1986 I put out an impassioned plea in the Fernie community newspaper on behalf of the Fernie Museum stating that the station was in peril and needed to be saved.
The Arts Council then headed by Beth Gregg stepped up to the plate and successfully negotiated the donation of the station from a somewhat indifferent C.P.R.
The station, they were told, had to be moved and move it they did in 1987 onto a new foundation across the street from its original location.
Lawrence Chrismas photo
Natal Station 1982 - one of two CPR stations in the Michel
Creek valley at one time
The Fernie & District Arts Council then began the renovation and restoration of this remarkable piece of history and literally thousands of hours of volunteer work went into lovingly refurbishing it into a first rate community arts center. The station is as busy as it ever was when it saw high traffic volumes 80 years ago. These days the traffic is of a different kind. The original lobby is a gallery for the display of works by local artists; the ticket office is a first rate restaurant; the baggage room is a 100-seat theatre used by visiting and local performers. Quilters, painters, stitchers and weavers use the upper floor while photographers and pottery enthusiasts practice their crafts in the basement studios.
I remember well participating in the first assessment of the building with an engineer to determine if it could be moved. It was a shock to discover the baggage areas (now the theater) had no support beam for the thirty foot long ceiling joists. They were almost pure white coastal fir and had just about no distortion in them despite the mind boggling span. One could not drive a nail into them without drilling first into their rock hard fiber.
The station has seen further upgrades through the years including a 2008 return to the more appropriate chocolate and crème coloured paint scheme from its cheerful but historically inappropriate blue. The windows were replaced with technically modern but historically accurate substitutes and the platform has had an outside stage added to its west side.
Today it continues to be the bustling hub of downtown Fernie with live music and theater complimenting the welcoming atmosphere of a truly special railway station rescue transformed into a first class arts center.
