Many decades ago, two everyday sort of rail cars did their work, being used to cart supplies to workers who built the electrical generating station and dam at Jordan River.
 
Now, like many artifacts that are singularly left behind, these two narrow gauge rail cars have achieved some incidental notoriety.
 
For decades the retired rail cars have been on display at the Forest Discovery Centre in Duncan, visited by many a tourist and becoming the frequent backdrop for many a class of students on field trips.
 
Earlier this year, BC Hydro's Ted Olynyk thought perhaps the rail cars might be a suitable acquisition for Sooke, and he approached the District of Sooke's Corporate Officer Bonnie Sprinkling, who then turned the project toward Lee Boyko at the Sooke Region Museum.
 
The rail cars would find a home that is closer to home, here on the west side of Vancouver Island.
 
Indeed the smaller of the two vehicles (10 feet 6 inches long by 55 inches wide) is now destined for display outdoors at the Sooke Region Museum, while the larger vehicle (19 feet long by 55 inches wide) may yet find its way back to its roots at Jordan River, if there is interest on the part of the CRD's Juan de Fuca Electoral Area to acquire and display it.
 
The rail cars that rode on tracks 36 inches wide were donated by BC Hydro to Sooke, and BC Hydro also threw in a $5,000 donation toward the job of refurbishing the two units as well as coordinating and paying for the delivery of the heavy machines by flatbed truck this week.
 
It was a frosty but bright Thursday morning (21 Nov 2013) when the two clunkers arrived at the Kaltasin works yard, haivng journeyed over the Malahat along with a crane-lift truck that would lift the rail cars off and down, and manoeuver them into the repair bay at the works yard.
 
With some TLC by metal fabricators, and a carpenter or two, they could be tourist-attraction worthy within a year, says Sooke Region Museum executive director Lee Boyko.
 
The District of Sooke is contributing work space at the Kaltasin work yard for a year, to give volunteers time to reburbish the rail cars.
 
Volunteers with skills in metal fabricating and carpentry who wish to help with the project may contact director@sookeregionmuseum.com.
 
Mary P. Brooke.