I have blatantly ripped this off from a press release kit, handed out on the past Friday from this post. "Announcing the Roundhouse & Conference Centre at the West Coast Railway Heritage Park" (I'm putting it here in this forum as they will have to use CN track to run anything - formally BC Rail). " Squamish BC, March 18th, 2005 - The West Coast Railway Association is excited to announce that a new Roundhouse and Conference Centre will be built at the West Coast Railway Heritage Park. This new facility will provide: 1) a new permanent home for the Royal Hudson 2) a New exhibit building for seven pieces of the WCRA's heritage railway equipment 3) a new community facility for Squamish and the Sea to Sky corridor. The Roundhouse and Conference Centre will convert from its primary function as an exhibit building to a unique meeting and conference facility with up to 20,000 square feet of clear meeting space. This is accomplished by rolling out the heritage locomotives and cars, panelling in the track ways, and set up the meeting or dining venue in the space. The new $4 million facility will be built in 2005/2006 thanks to a grant in the amount of $2 million (my comment: election coming up) from the Province of British Columbia's Community development Infrastructure initiative, and $2 million in private sector funds put up by a WRCA member. The project will generate more than $10 million in economic impact during construction, and then add $1 million a year to the Heritage Park's economic contribution going forward. (My comment: Squamish is a smaller town so this impact will be felt positively). An additional 25,000 annual visitors will be added to the Heritage Park's operation due to the new facility. The West Coast Railway Heritage Park is a project of the West Coast Railway Association, a private nor for profit charitable organization. The WRCA presents Western Canada's largest collection of heritage railway equipment, and is the "Home of the Royal Hudson." In 2004 the Heritage Park hosted 45,000 guest from all over the world, including the first Day Out With Thomas event in Canada. WCRA now employs 15 people and our volunteers contributed over 29,000 volunteer hours last year. More information at www.wcra.org Cheers guys (me again). Dane (formally BC Rail King) and I went to the announcement as we are members there. There objective is to have this finished in a little under two years. They hope to snag a lot of business in 2010 as Squamish is half way between Vancouver (one hours drive) and Whistler BC, where the Winter Olympics will be held.
Right now it is sitting outside, except when it is being worked on. This is true of other engines as well, so you can see why this structure will be critical for long term longevity of the engines.
