The first train on the KVR line arrives in Penticton, May 31, 1915. A celebration is planned in Gyro Park May 30, commemorating 100 years of the KVR in Penticton.
Image Credit: Media photos of Aidan Mayes and Mandy Cole
May 26, 2015 - 4:26 PM
PENTICTON - Penticton has a party planned for an important anniversary of the city’s rail transportation history.
On May 31 the museum, Peach City Community Radio and the Department of Canadian Heritage will commemorate the arrival of the first trains on the Kettle Valley Railway into Penticton with 'Steamfest in the Park.'
Fifteen hundred Pentictonites - half the city’s population at the time - turned out to welcome those first locomotives on May 31, 1915. One hundred years later the Penticton Museum and Archives will host a free centennial birthday event in Gyro Park called Steamfest in the Park.
Steamfest host, Peach City Radio’s Craig Henderson, says the railway linked Penticton with the rest of Canada as well as coastal B.C., playing an influential role over the years in the development of local industry.
“Those who worked the trains considered the KVR to be a ‘badge of honour’ amongst railroaders because of the challenges faced in operating a railway through some of the continent’s toughest terrain,” Henderson says.
The party begins at 1 p.m., May 30, with the Kettle Valley Brakemen performing at the Gyro Park bandshell at 4 p.m.
On Sunday, May 31, the Kettle Valley Steam Railway in Summerland will host special celebratory train trips to commemorate the centennial. Tickets will be available during the May 30 event at Gyro Park.
For a schedule of events for May 30, and for more information, visit peachcityradio.org/events/steamfest/
To contact the reporter for this story, email Steve Arstad at sarstad@infonews.ca or call 250-488-3065. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.
News from © iNFOnews, 2015