Surrey Historic Rialway

I volunteer at the Historic Stewart Farm and one of the perks is that I often get the opportunity to be a tourist in my own town for free. This time it was at the Surrey Historic Railway. The starting point of the railway is in Cloverdale and they have spent many years restoring some of the original railcars. The one we were in had been shipped away and they found it in the US some place. It was once part of the British Columbia Electric Railway (BCER)'s interurban line which operated from 1910 to 1950, connecting communities from Vancouver to Chilliwack. It's interesting to think we had local rail service so long ago only to lose it and to need to resuscitated it later.

If they had kept it going and built all the cities around rail it wouldn't cost us so much to do Skytrain now. The trip itself is fun but not very long. They take you down their private spur and then have permission to use the mainline on Sundays. You then proceed through some industrial and farmland before turning around and coming back. You'd think you would be backwards in one direction but not so. The seats allow you to stand up and switch them to face the opposite direction. They were very proud of those restored seats.