Moving from station to station
Waterloo Central Railway is in fundraising mode for new terminal building at St. Jacobs market
THE WATERLOO CENTRAL RAILWAY is hoping some new events on the train will help increase ridership and with them will come donations for a market train station.
The process of creating a proper train station at the St. Jacobs Farmers’ Market stop began about three years ago, said interim CEO Randy Bird. Recently, they’ve put up signs to raise awareness of their public fundraising campaign.
They’ve slowly graduated from a construction trailer to a shed to designing a real building there.
“Up until several weeks ago all we had at the train station was a very small, very ugly, white construction trailer stuck in the back of the market. It’s only through the efforts of the volunteers – this is an allvolunteer organization – that we managed to get the trailer moved to the front. We now have Bosman who has generously sponsored a shed for us so that we have a better environment and safer for people to come in and buy tickets,” Bird said.
Light rail transit construction in Waterloo resulted in them losing their stop on Father David Bauer Drive, which was their only station. They secured a longterm lease at the market train stop location and started fundraising to build the new station there. The train no longer runs to Waterloo.
It will be a long-term fundraising campaign with the goal to have construction begun on the station within the next two years.
“In the original stages it started off as a quartermillion dollar project then it went to half a million. With the rail changes and everything we’re at about three-quarters of a million dollars. Every dollar that gets added to the price of the station adds time to it,” Bird said.
Thus far they’ve received two small grants from property developer SmartCentres and the federal government. Those allowed the railway group to start the legal and paperwork to move the process forward. He says it was also quickly used up on drawings and soil samples.
“We’re really looking to the community to help us and we’re looking to the region to help and to the local townships to help as well,” Bird added.
And having a proper train station is something customers have asked for since they lost the Waterloo one.
“People could come in, they could wait for the train indoors, they could wait out on the loading platform under shelter. It was a much safer environment to have people waiting in a controlled area as opposed to a field next to railways tracks,” Bird said.
They’ve put together some interactive experiences for train commuters over the summer, including the Great Train Robbery, which is an exciting train ride from St. Jacobs to Elmira where they must protect a large amount of gold. The next Great Train Robbery is today.
“That’s how we’re actually trying to get to where we want to go is by offering
some really fun things to do on the train,” Bird said.
In September and October they’ll be doing trips where the train will stop at a pumpkin patch and kids can jump off, grab a pumpkin, and jump back on. They’ll also be doing several Halloween dress-up events.
“It’s actually fun, the whole experience and there’s so much history here. It’s worth going online and checking out the different trains,” Bird said.
Anyone looking to donate can go to www.waterloocentralrailway.com and click on Buy Tickets. Choose any event in that category and click “New Station Donation.”