The historic Falher Railway Station has made it to its new home in McLennan.
After a year of planning, applying for grants and collecting donations, the station made the 20 kilometre trip on a flatbed truck from Falher to the Northern Alberta Railway Museum on Tuesday.
Society and Museum Treasurer Theresa Demeule says the move actually went rather smoothly.
“It took a couple of hours to get it from Falher to McLennan but it seemed to go very smoothly and in the next day or two it should be on the foundation.”
Prior to the move, the building was being used as a tourism centre but was underutilized. In 2018, the building was donated to the railway museum and will be a replacement for the old train station that burnt down there in the 1980s.
Demeule says getting this building here means a lot to the museum and the people that live in the area.
“Its a really huge thing; people in town are very excited about it. We love to see tourism in our town and expanding this museum; everybody in town is interested.”
The estimated cost of the move is sitting at $120,000 in grants, donations and fundraisers but that amount will still need to be matched in manpower hours.
Demeule adds that the building is in need of some new paint and some work will need to be done in order to turn the inside into a museum space. She expects it to be at least another year before the building can really get up and running.
