Trudeau makes whistle stop in Summerland

Passengers who caught a ride Monday afternoon on the Kettle Valley Steam Railway also got a surprise visit from a special guest: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Trudeau showed up at the tourist attraction while it was stopped at its turnaround point on the Trout Creek trestle in rural Summerland.

“It’s good to be back. It’s beautiful here,” said Trudeau after blowing the horn on the restored 1912 steam locomotive, making it an actual whistle-stop event.

The visit wasn’t publicized beforehand and the train’s crew was only asked by the prime minister’s staff to hold on site about 20 minutes before Trudeau arrived.

The train’s conductor, Ron Belisle, told The Herald he doesn’t have an eye for famous people but couldn’t recall ever having anyone like a siting prime minister on the locomotive.

“It’s great. Fantastic!” said Belisle.

One of his passengers, 10-year-old Taysen Ziegman of Fort St. John, was similarly pleased — and surprised — to meet the prime minister and shake his hand.

“It was weird. I didn’t expect him,” said Ziegman, who is visiting Summerland while on vacation with his family.

Also not expecting the prime minister were members of Summerland council, three of whom — Erin Carlson, Erin Trainer and Doug Holmes — showed up at the train trestle anyway and eventually got a photo with Trudeau, who then went to visit a nearby fruit stand.

The media got the silent treatment too, both in Summerland and earlier in the day in Kelowna, where Trudeau did a similar flurry of photo-ops without taking questions from reporters.

Though a few of Trudeau’s other summer appearances around the country have been met with protestors allied with last winter’s Ottawa-bound convoy, even forcing the hurried cancellation of some such events, there was no such tumult waiting for Trudeau in the Okanagan.

That’s probably because the prime minister’s official itinerary for the day didn’t even refer to Kelowna or Summerland, saying only the PM would be in the “Interior