12 September 2006
Locomotive Restoration Picks Up Steam
Squamish British Columbia - Singh Biln still has the toy
trains he played with as a child, but these days he has a bigger train with which to play.
As project manager for the West Coast Railway Association railway heritage park, Mr. Biln is supervising an upgrade of the Royal Hudson,
a 66-year-old steam locomotive that ran for 25 years as a tourist train between North Vancouver and Squamish.
For the past 14 months, the locomotive has been undergoing a $500,000 boiler upgrade, a renovation designed to bring the Royal Hudson out
of retirement for the second time since it was built in 1940. A dozen volunteers and contractors at the Squamish railway park have worked
seven days a week to rebuild the engine's boiler in preparation for a 28 Sep 2006 demonstration run.
"She has a completely new set of innards and should be good for another 25 to 50 years," said Don Evans, executive director of
the WCRA, a non-profit group dedicated to preserving British Columbia's railway history.
Built in Montreal, the Royal Hudson 2860 was a sister locomotive to 2850, the train that carried King George VI and his wife, Queen
Elizabeth, on their 1939 cross-Canada tour. With a 14-wheel configuration that includes eight pony wheels and
six 190-centimetre driving wheels, the Royal Hudson 2860 had a top speed of 193 kilometres an hour on the
Vancouver-to-Revelstoke run it was designed for. (Editor: Not likely!)
In service for 16 years before an initial retirement, the locomotive was rescued in the 1960s and put back into service in 1974 by the
Royal Hudson Steam Society as a tourist train on the 60-kilometre run from the Lower Mainland to Squamish.
In 25 years, it carried almost one million passengers. Facing a $2.5-million boiler replacement in 1999, it was again retired.
But now, with almost $500,000 in provincial and federal grants and numerous private donations, the locomotive has undergone a boiler
upgrade and recently passed a provincial hydrostatic test, meaning it can run the rails again.
"But not too far from home," said Mr. Biln, an electrical engineer who worked on the 1999 report that detailed the locomotive's
upgrading requirements. The former BC Rail chief mechanical officer said the Royal Hudson should be able to make 10 to 20 trips a year.
The yearlong project has been complicated, requiring custom milling of parts and hand-placing 800 stay-bolts,
835 flex caps and 260 tubes and flues. Volunteers have removed rust and repainted the engine with high-temperature immersion
black paint.
Stripped of running boards, insulation, coverings and front nose, the Hudson still has original brass-buttoned leather
armrests outside the engineer's window.
Mr. Evans says the Royal Hudson is an icon in B.C.'s tourism industry.
"It is very clearly the best-known Canadian steam locomotive," he said. "You could go anywhere in the world,
and if you mention the Royal Hudson, people will relate to what and where it is."
Talks are under way with railway partners for potential trip itineraries. Vancouver-based Rocky Mountaineer Vacations, a
private tourist rail company that this year launched the Whistler Mountaineer, a Vancouver-to-Whistler run, said it is
interested.
"There aren't too many organizations in the rail business, and it's good to have friends like the WCRA," said Graham Gilley,
vice-president of marketing.
Mr. Evans says the Hudson's appeal is unique.
"If you watch an airplane go by, what do you see? Zoom. But when you see a steam locomotive go by, you can hear the sounds, see the
wheels and see the people. It's a symphony in motion."
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