Restoration of Passenger Rail Service

Back on March 7th - Lillooet Mayor Marg Lampman sent a letter to Mayor/Councils', Regional District Boards', First Nations' Chief/Councils and BC Liberal MLA's Jordan Sturdy, Jackie Tegart, Donna Barnett, Shirley Bond and Mike Morris calling upon their support for restoration of the former passenger rail service between the City of Prince George and the City of North Vancouver which was shut down back in 2002

CBC British Columbia also looks at this story here.  Meanwhile, BC Transportation Minister Todd Stone is dumping ice on the idea as:

1) The route took 14 hours to travel by rail in the corridor (Prince George - North Vancouver) and less than 10% of the public took advantage of passenger rail service on the route

2) Passenger Rail Service in the corridor was/is not financially viable as it would cost tens of millions to replace the aging passenger rail cars

Williams Lake City Council, meeting in Committee of the Whole this evening, will consider her request this evening - read the letter and background documents here

In a twist of irony - Council will consider the item as current Williams Lake Mayor Walt Cobb was the-then MLA for Cariboo-South when CN Rail was the successful bidder for BC Rail back in 2003 for roughly $1 billion dollars and current Williams Lake City Councillor Scott Nelson was on the 2002-05 Williams Lake Council who vigorously opposed the arrangement as bad for rural BC Communities as did former Williams Lake City Councillor Surinderpal Rathor at the time (2003-04)

~SF