A historic rural Manitoba train station with a surprising connection to Japan is about to get a nearly $100,000 face-lift. The Rivers Train Station, a federally designated heritage site, was built in 1917. It allowed for the creation of the Sekine bicycle factory, which produced up to 50,000 of the Japanese-designed bicycles a year. According to the Rivers Train Station Restoration Project, this was the only Sekine factory in the world outside of Japan. The station closed in the early 1990s but eventually reopened as a ‘stationette’ for VIA passengers. Since 2006, the Rivers Train Station Restoration Project has been working to restore the old station, and now it’s getting a boost from the province. On Wednesday, the Manitoba government announced $98,000 will be used for an economic development capacity-building project. This will include creating a one-of-a-kind Sekine museum inside the station. It will also support a research project on the history of the Sekine bicycle story - a collaboration between researchers at the University of Winnipeg and their counterparts in Japan. “We are thrilled with the funding of this project by the Manitoba government,” said Donna Morken, chair of the Rivers Train Station Restoration and Heritage Committee, in a government news release. “To be able to share our story of how a Sekine bicycle and the Rivers train station have shaped the past, the present and the future of our community is very exciting.” The funding is coming out of the From the Ground Up – Safe Healthy Communities for ALL program.
