A $5 million provincial cash injection to replace aging coaches on the Agawa Canyon Tour Train is a major step toward rebuilding the excursion train’s reputation and visitor experience.
Calling it the “biggest tourism announcement in the history of Sault Ste. Marie,” Ian McMillan, executive director of Tourism Sault Ste. Marie, says the money will bring “one of Northern Ontario’s iconic attractions to a first class level.”
“It takes what is really our destination tourism attraction and gives us a good chance to bring it back to the iconic proportions that it should be,” says McMillan, harkening back to the tour train hey-days of drawing more than 100,000 visitors annually to the city.
The money from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corp.to the Sault Ste. Marie Economic Development Corporation (EDC) will help purchase and retrofit new passenger cars.
How many coaches will be acquired and where they’ll be purchased from remains undetermined.
McMillan says the EDC is examining various options of where to source them, either from another North American railway or a rail car broker. “There’s multiple choices out there.”
The EDC and the local tourism community are queuing up for major marketing relaunch for the 2009 tourism season coinciding with the arrival of the cars.
The aim is build seating capacity toward the 1,000 visitors-per-day mark with refurbished bi-level coaches with dome cars to provide maximum viewing opportunities.
“We’ve sourced out coaches in the United States (U.S.) Eastern Seaboard and Midwest and now it’s a matter of crunching the numbers and figuring out what complement of coaches,” says McMillan.
Replacing the more than 50-year-old tour coaches with newer rolling stock is long overdue.
Passenger ridership has steadily declined. The lack of a quality tourism experience combined with on-board mechanical breakdowns has soured many American visitors and group tour companies.
“It’s not the first-class experience we want to portray and provide to people,” says McMillan. “This gives us a chance to really build that clientele back up and give us a premier experience to customers.”
The refurbished air conditioned cars will have new seating and washrooms installed along with modern audio-visual features for on-board entertainment, informational and educational purposes.
Refurbishing the coaches will be done in a U.S. rail shop, says McMillan.
“(The government) did their due diligence before any of this funding was announced and tried to see if it could have been done here, but unfortunately they cannot.”
McMillan anticipates additional money coming from Canadian National Railway (the owners of the track), various tourism partners and federal funding agencies.
A City of Sault Ste. Marie feasibility study called for a $10.5 million investment in new rolling stock.
Some future plans for the actual Agawa Canyon location itself is to establish a visitors centre with interactive exhibits profiling the history, geography and the topography of Lake Superior Provincial Park and the Canadian Shield, says McMillan.
“Something that enables people to grasp where they are and how they got there, and what the history is all about.”
A spokesperson for a local coalition wanting to preserve passenger train service on the line is “delighted” with the investment in the tour train coaches.
But Linda Savory Gordon of the Coalition for Algoma Passengers Trains (CAPT) is anxious to see what private money is forthcoming to provide enhanced service on the regular passenger run between the Sault and Hearst.
She says the tour train refurbishment should “whet tourists’ appetite” to explore the area and stay longer beyond a one-day excursion.
The coalition has big plans to market the former Algoma Central Railway line as a ‘wilderness tourism-by-rail corridor.’
There’s growing unhappiness amongst cottagers and lodge owners because of passenger train scheduling reductions and delays due to malfunctioning rolling stock.
The group plans to release a research study in mid-October outlining the railway’s historic significance, its socio-economic impacts on nearby communities and its tourism potential.
CAPT has contracted a well-respected tourism consultant, Douglass Legg of Malone Givens Parsons Ltd. to oversee their research.
The study examines different railway management models like the Island Corridor Foundation, the not-for-profit owners of a passenger and rail service on Vancouver Island; and the Quebec, North Shore & Labrador Railway, a First Nation-run service on the East Coast.
