FEstivals gEt a closEr look
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Why arE thEsE housEs Empty?
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FirE DEpartmEnt opEn housE
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OctOber 4 2013 www.newwestnewsleader.com
new West is about to get a craft brewery, right next door to a popular local winery. See Page A3
SD40’s business company shutting down Grant Granger
ggranger@newwestnewsleader.com
MArIO bArteL/NeWSLeADer
rip peterman, the president of the B.c. chapter of the national railway historical society, is worried the 23 historic rail coaches and one locomotive stored in a new Westminster warehouse will be scattered to collectors all over north america when the sapperton green property on Braid street is redeveloped.
Historic train group gets eviction notice ‘Probably the biggest operable collection in Canada’ group says Mario bartel
photo@newwestnewsleader.com
A collection of 23 vintage Canadian rail coaches as well as one infamous locomotive stored in a New Westminster warehouse is in danger of being broken up. Rip Peterman, president of the B.C. chapter of the National Railways Historical Society, said his group has until April to find a
new home for the 1940 to 1960-era Peterman said many of the rail train cars, which have been lovingly cars might end up in the United restored in a back corner of a States, and some coaches may get giant industrial dismantled by warehouse next other collectors to the Braid for parts. SkyTrain station. chuck Puchmayr, city councillor “This is The warehouse We have served notice that we probably the will be have an interest in preserving it. biggest operable demolished by collection in developer Bentall Kennedy to Canada,” said Peterman. make way for Sapperton Green, “We would like to keep it.” a 38-acre mixed-use development But with the clock ticking the including office buildings, retail and group, which is comprised of six residential. active railway buffs plus volunteers
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who come and go as projects develop, faces some daunting obstacles. Peterman said the space they’ve occupied in the warehouse for 28 years is unique because it affords them the room to store the coaches inside, safe from the crowbars and screwdrivers of metal thieves and unscrupulous collectors looking for notable components, as well as access to a main rail line from an unused dead-end spur. please see ‘We NeeD A cHAMPION’, A3
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Just as it was providing profit to a deficit-besieged New Westminster school district, the business company is being shut down because changes to provincial regulations have made money-making highly unlikely. The SD40 business company’s board of directors has decided to transfer operations in China to a private company, CINEC Education Group, because of provincial policy changes imposed upon school district business companies in B.C. The Ministry of Education now requires the companies to use consultants from an approved list of 16, and the ones New West was using weren’t on it. The regulations also required students to pass the English 12 provincial exam before getting their graduation certificate and basing 40 per cent of their mark on the provincial exam and 60 per cent on classroom work. Those changes made it difficult to recruit students to the business company’s school in Wenzhou, China, said its chief executive officer Brent Atkinson, a former school trustee. please see A11