Okotoks Alberta - A tribute to railway stations, 35 years in the making, is being gifted to a southern Alberta community as a labour of love.
 
Gerald Knowlton grew up in Standard, Alberta, surrounded by trains and the culture that went with them.
 
"I grew up in a railway station and I wanted to honour them, together with the Canadian Pacific Railway," Knowlton told CBC News.
 
Knowlton's father was a station agent at the Standard station for 42 years and living at the station meant the railway had a major influence on Knowlton's life.
 
"I love trains. I have travelled all over the world in trains. I go out of my way to travel by train."
 
In the early 1980s, the CPR was abandoning stations.
 
Knowlton and a friend visited five in southern Alberta to find the perfect station to turn into a railway museum and decided the one in Champion was right on track.
 
"This was the one that was in the best shape and was also identical to the station that I grew up in," he said.
 
That was 35 years ago.
 
"We bought the station and didn't have a place to put it," Knowlton said.
 
One of Knowlton's daughters eventually chose the site for the future museum, but Knowlton said the building was up on blocks for nearly a year before they were able to build the foundation for the station.
 
Knowlton's tribute to railways, Champion Park, landed near Okotoks, south of Calgary.
 
Collecting railway cars wasn't easy, Knowlton said, but they took advantage of every opportunity the railway presented to collect the cars, one by one.
 
"Each car is special. We have three cabooses, but each caboose represents a different era. One is a wooden caboose, another is a steel caboose. We also have a side-window caboose, which the CPR only had about four or five of those," he said.
 
Knowlton's parents contributed ideas and knowledge on how to develop the park.
 
"Where the buildings should be placed. They salvaged the clock as a present to me. That's the clock that I decided what time to go to school, what time to deliver the papers. I looked at that clock all my early life."
 
Knowlton's father knew the park was in part, a tribute to him.
 
"He loved coming here," he said.
 
"He came here for his 90th birthday. He died at 93. This was his favourite spot in the world."
 
Centre of the Community
 
"The trains were the centre of the town," Knowlton recalled.
 
"It was where the community could communicate through telegraphs with the rest of the world. It was where T. Eaton Co. and Simpsons and others were able to ship their merchandise to the small towns. This is where the Boy Scouts would gather every Tuesday night in the winter time. The army, because it was so cold and wet or muddy outside, would sometimes use the platform of the station as a dry spot where they could do their drills."
 
Knowlton even earned some decent tip money by carrying express parcels up the hill to the Standard town centre as child.
 
As all good things must come to an end, Knowlton said there came a time when pulling out of the station felt right.
 
The station is being given to the town of Okotoks and the Municipality of Foothills.
 
"They have undertaken, as part of the gift, to maintain it in perpetuity. That's a long time. Having built up the park to the place that it is, I have a strong desire that it is being maintained, which they have undertaken to do. It is with a lot of satisfaction that I can donate it to somebody who is going to retain it for many generations to come."
 
Knowlton says knowing the park will live on, hopefully inspiring a younger generation to learn a little more about history, is his way of honouring his upbringing and his father.
 
"He always encouraged us to go on with our education," he said.
 
"We had an atmosphere that was continually learning in the home. I look back with fondness and gratefulness to my parents for having done that."
 
David Bell.