Riding the Interurban Railway

Jan and I went to Cloverdale Station to see the original trains my mom used to ride way back in the 20s and 30s. The mission of the Fraser Valley Heritage Railway Assn. is to restore and to operate heritage interurban cars on the original BC Electric Railway Route through Surrey and the Fraser Valley to link heritage tourism destinations.We got to ride the 1225, built by the St. Louis Car Co. in 1913. There were 28 identical cars ordered, 51 ' long,69,700 lbs with a capacity for 60 passengers. They could travel up to 55 mph.

 When we went East, the train worker had to get off and throw the switch to move the tracks for us to go through. We then went back the other way heading west to Sullivan Station but first had to stop traffic 3 times including Hwy 10, a 4 lane major road while we puddled along and a dirt track at some farmers field.

This 4.7 mile (7.4 km) trip was delightful, seeing the back of farms, beautiful quiet countryside,
 crossing the Serpentine River only about 10' at that spot and viewing the restored original car. 
Shoes at Woodwards were only $7.45

We had a ride on the speeder and toured the restoration area of the Cloverdale car barn. We had ridden the 1225 all restored to its former glory with 20,000 volunteer hours. It was the last run before the system was decommissioned Feb. 28, 1958.

                      We had a great time.
They have built a car barn where they are refurbishing another train.