Today is the last day of June and we had our June train station meeting last week. Everyone is gearing up for the huge celebration that is coming. Every year our committee pays for and plants flowers at the Rivers Stationette to greet the travelers coming to take an adventure or return from one. We all take turns during the summer for a week at a time to water them and make them look their best. This years must be especially well looked after as we want to look beautiful for the over 1000 people coming back to the community. The retired Rivers Masonic Lodge members donated money to our committee and this month, beautiful charcoal colored brick  flower gardens adorn either side of the train rail arbour in the Millennium Park. We will post photos of this once the flowers are in full bloom.  A granite plaque is being produced to honor this donation, as many of the members of the Rivers Lodge were railroaders.
Members of our committee are working on a float for the huge parade on July 6th and then of course we have some fundraising events to promote. A local artist by the name of Ina Hyndman has donated a beautiful watercolor, of a passenger train travelling across the trestle. As well we have made an agreement with Manitoba's famous Morden Chocolates of Winnipeg to produce solid milk chocolate steam engines for sale during this special year. After our committee tasted one, it was a hit and a great choice to fundraise and do something else that is unique. So we will be at the Rivers fair on July 3rd with these delights and from there at our new community complex on sale for everyone that has a sweet tooth!
Around the middle of June we had Canadian Poet and writer, Tim Bowling visit with us as he is working on a project to celebrate the life of Buster Keaton, the silent film star. Buster was in a National Film Board production called The RailRodder and spent time in Rivers during its' filming. It is another amazing story for another time.
This week promises to be a week of new beginnings for us, as we have an architectural firm coming from Winnipeg to see if we can work together and get started on the renovation of the station. We are very excited about this and look forward to seeing the station come to life. For now we will be happy to enjoy the festivities and friendships of the 100th anniversary this week. Happy Birthday to Canada on Canada Day and Happy 100th Birthday to Rivers. All aboard for the fun!

A long overdue update

After a lengthy absence, we are now back to providing an update to everyone as to what is happening with our committee and our project. Our committee usually meets once a month and discusses where we are with fundraising & restoration plans, articles donated to us, stories involving the station and railroaders in general and much more. In the last 3 years we have worked on raising the awareness of the heritage aspect of our building and the railroad within our community and area. Our committee members have been involved in many smaller projects on our way to the largest project of all. Many railroad enthusiasts have sent us stories, articles or pieces of memorabilia for us to house in our museum in the train station. Once we get our blog up to date on all we have completed thus far, it truly shows what a small group of dedicated people can do.
Having said that, Rivers is having its 100th Anniversary this year and there are many events planned for celebrating between July 2 -7th, 2013. It will be a time for all to renew old friendships and regale of stories of what used to happen when they visited, lived or worked here.
This heritage of stories and people and events is something that the Rivers Train Station Restoration Committee Inc. has been working on for the last three years as it has such a connection to the railroad. We have been working on a project with the Manitoba Historic Resources Branch to capture our history through the buildings in our community, the original people who brought this community to life and the events that have followed along the way. We are currently working on a heritage website for the town and the surrounding RM which will be a living document that people will continue to submit stories, photos and all things heritage for our area. We are thankful to Manitoba Culture, Heritage and Tourism for providing the funding for us to complete these most important projects.
The committee continues to add to the railroad theme throughout the community by providing unique railroad benches, a unique and very heavy train rail arbour and a 27 piece massive puzzle that depicts the heritage of the area with the railroad. The puzzle pieces are about 3-4 feet in length and cover the train station windows while we work on the station itself. The goal of the committee is to remove the puzzle pieces off the windows and back into a very large mural in 2017 when the train station turns 100. We were assisted with this project by The Whitehead Foundation of Western Manitoba and it is the only puzzle piece art that we know of in Manitoba and from our research, the rest of Canada.
We have been working toward funding for our restoration of the station and while we have worked hard at retaining grants, we have not yet received the large ones that will begin the restoration by re-doing the roof. The building is a Federally designated heritage building and we have to restore the outside as it was, which means cedar shingles for the roof to begin the process.
VIA Rail has been an amazing and very supportive partner along the journey and we look forward to the day where they will house their waiting room inside the station as it used to be. For now we are proud of the work we have completed in keeping the Rivers Train Stationette a place of pride until the Rivers Train Station is restored.