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Past News
August 2008
Surrey Foundation Grant
The Surrey Foundation provided a grant of $7,500 for the FVHRS Community Outreach and Public Education programme. This grant will help us continue the newspaper advertisements and the production of the newsletter.
Other support for FVHRS from this grant will continue our appearance at many local events. This summer we have attended:
- The Canada Day event at Cloverdale, and the Sprit 150 Steam train
- Picnic in the park; Valtac announcement of their new communications programme and trailer based graphics. See the Valtac site for more news.
- The Cloverdale Blueberry Festival
- Our ongoing Open House events.
March 2008
City of Surrey grant - part two
The City of Surrey completed the truck refurbishment grant with a additional cheque for $75,000. This brings the total grant to $150,000 which will allow the trucks for BCER 1225 to be completely refurbished. The trucks have been removed from under 1225 and are off-site. Rewiring work continues on the car while the trucks are away.
November, 2007
City of Surrey - truck refurbishment grant approved.
Surrey City Council recently approved a grant request by the FVHRS for $150,000 towards the refurbishment of the BCER 1225 trucks. A cheque for $75,000 was presented by Councillor Judy Higginbotham at the 2nd annual Volunteer's Appreciation Dinner. A further $75,000 will be presented next year to complete the work. The Volunteer's Appreciation Dinner was held at the local New York, New York restaurant, across the street from the FVHRS Sullivan Car barn.
This substantial grant is the latest demonstration of the ongoing support by the City of Surrey for the Fraser Valley Heritage Railway Society’s plans of restoring BCER 1225 and running it on the Surrey section of the original Fraser Valley line for heritage tourism purposes. The FVHRS was formed in 2001 after encouragement, and a financial kick-start from Jim Wallace (deceased), in 1996 of the Surrey Heritage Advisory Commission to undertake a feasibility study. The Rehabilitation of BCER 1225 is 50% complete with just over 5000 hours in volunteer time already donated by a dedicated group of skilled FVHRS members. The rehabilitation work is being coordinated by the FVHRS vice-chair, Robert Ashton. The goal is to have the rehabilitation complete by the end of 2009.
Car club visit
October, 2007
FVHRS Co-chair hosted the Morgan Owners Group Northwest at an evening showing of the Sullivan Car barn.
Last Open House for the season - well attended with over 79 rides on the speeder.
New web site
September 25, 2008
The launch of the revised web site, new graphics and ongoing images of the BCER 1225 interurban car rehabilitation.
Surrey Foundation provided a grant for $7,500 towards the FVHRS Community Outreach and Public Education work. These funds support the newsletters, newspaper advertizing and Open House activities.
Grant money from Province of BC.
September, 2007
BC Gaming has awarded the FVHRS $12,000 toward the 2008 Community Outreach & Public Education programme. This program helps to get the word out about the FVHRS and to remind people about the interurban rail line.
City of Surrey grant to FVHRS
March, 2007
FVHRS Volunteers Ron Powers and Neal Wilkie, appeared in the Surrey NOW newspaper working on BCER 1225. The associated article describes the work of the FVHRS in operating BCER 1225 on the existing interurban line that still goes though Surrey.
The article also describes the support from the City of Surrey in creating the Heritage Rail Demonstration Project to get the restored BCER 1225 car running on the line as a pilot project. Peter Holt, Director of FVHRS has been appointed as the Project Manager.
The FVHRS also received almost $14,000 from the Surrey Foundation as their part of distributing the award from a class action lawsuit. The settlement was directed to community transportation and heritage projects. The FVHRS will be using these funds towards community awareness and communication about the efforts of the society.