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Stanley Park’s popular miniature train will be hopping back into service for the Easter long weekend.
The Vancouver park board made the announcement on social media, with Chair Brennan Bastyovanszky saying on Sunday that the Easter train will include an accessible car for children in wheelchairs — an option that wasn’t available when the train resumed operations last Christmas.
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Bastyovanszky said he has also asked staff to provide sensory-friendly time-slots for neurodivergent children and their families.
The Stanley Park train was out of commission for several consecutive years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, coyotes, and mechanical issues.
It returned last Christmas for the annual Bright Nights event after corporate and charitable donors stepped in to fund the train’s repairs.
Commissioner Scott Jensen, who was chair of the park board in December, said he was “saddened” when Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim announced the return of the miniature train at a news conference, saying “It’s back, baby.”
“It wasn’t. It wasn’t back for all,” wrote Jensen on X. “It is now.”
Sim is set to make an announcement Monday with park board commissioner Jas Virdi at city hall on Monday about an “accessible experience.”
The mayor and some park board commissioners are embroiled in a spat after Sim began the process of dismantling the park board. Last December, the ABC Vancouver-controlled city council voted to abolish Canada’s only elected park board.
The park board has hired a legal team to fight the city’s decision. Disbanding the park board will require a provincial amendment of the Vancouver charter.
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Tickets are not yet available for the Easter event, but if demand last Christmas is anything to go by, tickets will sell out quickly.
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The park board said demand for Bright Nights tickets was “unprecedented,” with 23,000 tickets selling out online within 90 minutes.
When the attraction opened, only one of the fleet’s four locomotives and three of 13 carriages were operational. Two more carriages were added later, and the park board extended the event past New Year’s Day, adding 17,000 more capacity.
It is not clear how many carriages will be operational for the Easter weekend.
More to come …
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