British Columbia museum receives grant for shop restoration

Museum building one of five remaining Pacific Great Eastern Railway buildings

SQUAMISH, British Columbia — The Railway Museum of British Columbia has received a $50,000 Heritage Legacy Fund grant from Heritage BC to assist with work on its car shop. The museum matched the grant, netting $100,000 for the project.

The grant funds the reconstruction of the shop’s five rail doors. Each 14- by 22-foot door opening has two panels, which a 1917 contract record describes as “equal to the height of a two-story building.”

“You can see the condition is very poor,” Tom Arnott, museum operations manager, recently told the Squamish Chief. “Also, the framing at the top needs replacing.”

The museum is seeking a local contractor for the project, and plans to start work in January 2026.

What is now the museum car shop was constructed in 1914 by the Pacific Great Eastern Railway. The PGE became BC Rail in 1984. In 2004, BC Rail operation was leased to Canadian National Railway. BC Rail donated the 80- by 151-foot wood frame car shop building to the museum in 1991. The structure was located at the railroad’s Squamish shop complex, which is south of the museum site. The shop was moved intact to the museum, reportedly the largest move of its kind in British Columbia.

“It’s the oldest industrial building, probably in Squamish,” Arnott says. “It’s one of only five left, that we know of, of PGE railway historic buildings.”

In 2025, Heritage BC received grant requests totaling more than $1.8 million. The grant competition was stiff, Arnott says, and the museum is lucky to be a recipient.

“We are proud to support this year’s projects, yet it is clear that the need is far greater than the funding available,” says Keri Briggs, chair of the Heritage BC board of directors, in a news release. “We truly wish more projects could have been supported. We will continue to advocate for the resources required to preserve the heritage that enriches our communities and strengthens our province.”

Find out more about the Railway Museum of British Columbia at its website.