A new partnership with the objective of preserving and presenting steam railroading in Southwestern British Columbia has been proposed and agreed to in principle by three groups, the West Coast Railway Association, the Kamloops Heritage Railway and the Kettle Valley Steam Railway. While there is lots of work to do, the concepts are very simple - preserve and operate steam to make this area a centre of excellence for steam railroading, share technical information, expertise, tools etc., jointly market the three steam railway centres, and provide reciprocal benefits for the members of the three groups.
It is from this initiative that the genesis of the #16 to Kamloops project was conceived. With Kamloops having completed the restoration of CN #2141, there is a steam shop and crew that would love to tackle another project. The Kettle Valley group now have their next steam project in their shop, #3716. Here on the coast, WCRA’s priority is Royal Hudson #2860. So picture this vision—by 2005 there could be five operational steam locomotives in the southwest BC area, now wouldn't that be something to market.
This could roll out to become a joint marketing package and brochure to encourage visitors to make the trek to all three locations (all within an easy drive of each other). The package would offer a discount of some sort when the second and third steam visits were made. And for members of the three groups, some sort of reciprocal benefit of membership could also be created, increasing the value of membership.
Plans are to start small and test the waters by developing a home-made four-panel flyer to be handed out to guests at the three attractions during summer 2003, identifying each other and offering the discount incentive to visit the other two operations with directions on how to find them. Each operation would be on the cover of the flyer handed out at their location so it would be easy to track how the guest flow works.
Watch for details in a future issue as we start to work together more and more for the preservation of steam railway heritage in Southwestern British Columbia.
