18 April 2007
Train Steams in for Big 50th Birthday Party
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Crowds rush the rails after the historic Royal Hudson train
steamed its way to the White Rock waterfront Sunday during the city's 50th anniversary celebrations. Thousands of people turned out
for the event.
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White Rock British Columbia - Thousands of train spotters
crowded White Rock's waterfront Sunday afternoon when the Royal Hudson made a return appearance to help the city celebrate its 50th
anniversary.
"It was fabulous, an outstanding day," said White Rock Mayor Judy Forester. "The Royal Hudson was a big hit."
The mayor was among 600 passengers who rode the rails from Vancouver to White Rock on a train pulled by the restored 1940 steam loco.
Still and video cameras sprung up along the track like mushrooms after a rain as spectators captured the Royal Hudson's passing for
posterity.
Local sun worshipers got into the act Sunday when Surrey's United Naturists erected white crosses along the BNSF track just south of
Crescent Beach to protest the rail's presence on the beach and the passage of trains carrying dangerous chemicals along the Semiahmoo
Peninsula.
Meanwhile, the museum sold bronze plaques decorated with a steam locomotive to raise funds for a revitalization of its building, the
old train station on Marine Drive.
At 3 p.m. the Royal Hudson left White Rock and returned to Vancouver. The trip back to the Big Smoke wasn't quite so glamorous as the
outbound one, however. Unable to turn around, the Royal Hudson was towed - backwards - to Vancouver behind a diesel locomotive.
Sunday's was the third trip the train has made to White Rock. It came out in 1982 for the city's 25th anniversary and again in 1997 for
its 40th.
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