Port Alberni train station
The Port Alberni station building is a museum station in Port Alberni and the headquarters of The Western Vancouver Island Industrial Heritage Society .
history
The Port Alberni station building was constructed in 1911 and 1912. On December 20, 1911, to applause, the first traveler boarded the train on the new connection to Alberni and Port Alberni (at that time still two separate cities), the connection of which was the destination of the Canadian Pacific Railway . The construction work for the route from Parksville on the east coast from Vancouver Island to Port Alberni took around five years. In Victoria , people no longer had to rely on coastal steamships to get their bare minimums. The building was constructed according to standardized plans. While the counters, the telegraph station and the waiting rooms were on the ground floor, the upper floor was occupied by the station master's family, who operated the counter as a kind of agency.
There were changes in the 1950s when automobile traffic became more and more popular. A warehouse was built at the station with loading ramps for handling goods on trucks . The stationmaster no longer lived there either. In 1957, passenger traffic to Port Alberni was stopped. Freight traffic continued until 1988, when the station was closed.
In 1990 the station building was restored by a group of around one hundred volunteers under the direction of the Alberni Valley Museum and The Western Vancouver Island Industrial Heritage Society and returned to its original 1911 condition. At the same time, the Canadian government declared this place to be historically worthy of protection. Now the station serves as the starting point for the tourist trips to the McLean Mill .
Literature and Sources
- DVD of the Alberni Pacific Railway McLean Mill Run , Double Steep Productions, 2008, approx. 50 minutes
- Port Alberni Train Station , entry April 9, 1990, source: Alberni Valley Museum and Archives
Web links
Coordinates: 49 ° 14 ′ 6 " N , 124 ° 48 ′ 43.2" W.