Railway tunnel opens as city awaits fix
Article content
At first, it seemed as if no one would show.
tap here to see other videos from our team.
Railway tunnel opens as city awaits fix Back to video
The Brockville Railway Tunnel opened as scheduled Friday morning with no fanfare, other than a live post on social media by Coun. Nathalie Lavergne, who worried people may have had the wrong impression.
Lavergne was on hand early to prepare the site at the entrance to the tunnel for next Tuesday’s season opener of the Twilight Tuesdays Makers Market.
She said rumours had been circulating online, since news of city council’s decision Tuesday to defer any further tunnel spending, that the popular tourist attraction would not open as planned.
“Hopefully, they know that it’s open,” she said.
City employees predominated in the first few seconds of the tunnel’s new season. As summer harbour employee McKenzie Mulder and parks foreman Travis Shepherd pulled open the massive wooden doors, they were met with a surprise greeting from operations director Phil Wood and other city employees who had already entered from the north.
But the civilians showed up within a minute.
Sandra Zuidam-Melchers, who is here from the Netherlands visiting family, was touring the tunnel for the first time, and was among the first non-city-employees to go in.
“I’ve never been able to go through it,” she said, cellphone in hand to record the light show.
She entered the tunnel at the same time as Marisol Rueda, who came down from Gatineau with her three-year-old son, Mathéo Ascurra.
“We came here just to see the opening, because he loves trains,” she said.
They will, of course, have to plan a return visit, likely in July, for young Mathéo to experience the train whistle sound and light effect.
The light show has been reduced to a smaller stretch of white lighting while the city waits for the delivery of new equipment needed to restore the site to its previous glory.
This, after the constant dripping in the tunnel left mineral deposits on the lenses of the lights, which in turn caused water infiltration, leading to their rapid failure. Meanwhile, water infiltration into the pedestals along the tunnel has also taken out many of the enablers that drive the facility’s light show.
Council last month authorized the purchase of additional tunnel lighting components, at a cost of $300,229, to be covered by reserves. That’s in addition to the $120,000 in this year’s capital budget, based on an assessment at the end of last year’s tourism season, before the equipment decay worsened significantly over the winter.
City Hall now expects this increased spending to restore the tunnel to its previous state in time for early July.
On Tuesday, council stopped short of backing another expenditure of nearly $85,000 to fix the 13 control pedestals, pending a more detailed report, expected in late summer or fall, on the remedial work needed.
Local developer Michael Veenstra was also waiting for his chance to go through the tunnel Friday morning, undeterred by the reduced features.
“I came through here when it was decommissioned in the early 70s,” he recalled.
“It’s still intriguing. It’s got a lot of history.”
Rzajac@postmedia.com
(Catch up on what is happening throughout Eastern Ontario with our Midday Roundup. Click here to sign up for the free newsletter, which will be delivered to your inbox every weekday.)
Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.