For 60 years, the Stanley Park Train drew locals and tourists to a 2-kilometre rail track in the centre of Stanley Park – near the Vancouver Aquarium and the historic Indigenous village of X̱wáyx̱way – in a forested area that was cleared by a typhoon in 1962.
Now, it seems the train has run its last trip. “Everything has its life,” Mortal Coil Performance’s general manager Marietta Kozak told Vancity Lookout.
Since 1997, the local non-profit theatre production company had created displays and performances to animate the Ghost Train, an annual Halloween event, until its contract was cancelled after the train was shut down in late 2024.
Mortal Coil “devised the entire [Ghost Train production],” Kozak said, explaining how they constructed ambitious sets, including a huge puppet, and staged scenes in the forest, in view of the train, with actors playing out spooky, but not scary, scenes.
“Our mandate from the park board was it had to be accessible to kids over the age of five … It was important to us to maintain a mood without freaking out the kids [but] we would allow the actors to get scarier as the evening went on,” Kozak said.
A scene from Mortal Coil's 2014 Ghost Train installation / Tim Matheson
The train’s long history appears to be at its end, at least under its current setup, with the park board currently in the process of soliciting new ideas and business plans for an “updated and reimagined attraction” at the Stanley Park Train site.
The areas being considered for “attraction use and development under this opportunity include the Stanley Park Train site as well as the former location of the Children’s Farmyard,” according to a park board spokesperson.
Last November, the park board dipped its toe into hosting third-party attractions, with a temporary Harry Potter-themed event at the site. The choice was criticized at the time for high ticket prices and its connection to author J.K. Rowling and her anti-trans advocacy — but notably, it also marked a shift away from the decades-long programming around the train, towards higher-priced third-party events.
For the better part of three decades, the train, which operated regularly during the summer, was dressed up for themed events throughout the year, including Bright Nights around Christmas, the Ghost Train around Halloween, and an Easter-themed display in April.
“When [the] Ghost Train started, things were way different. There weren't other Halloween spectacles. There weren't other big things to do with your kids in that month. [Between the mid ‘90s when Ghost Train] started to when we finished it 25-30 years later, that had changed completely,” Kozak said.
The train and its infrastructure had been running on fumes for years. Since 2020, the popular attraction had been plagued by cancellations due to the pandemic, a failed safety inspection, and coyote attacks in Stanley Park. Since 2019, the train has cumulatively lost nearly $3 million, according to a July 2025 park board report.
Kozak said Mortal Coil was “always treated with a lot of respect” by the park board during those disruptions.
The cancellations were difficult for all the actors, artists, writers, and directors, who “put so much time into something which they wanted to see fulfilled,” Mortal Coil’s artistic director, and Kozak’s husband, Peter Hall told Vancity Lookout.
For its Halloween production, Mortal Coil employed over 60 artists, and an additional 30 aspiring actors from high schools in Vancouver and across the Lower Mainland.
“The loss here is the ongoing fall and winter income that went to those artists,” Kozak said. “A lot of them did count on it, because it was their Christmas money, or their ability to pay their rent in September and October.”
During Bright Nights in late 2024, the train closed suddenly, after an operator fell ill due to exhaust from one of the train locomotives, according to CBC. It now looks like that closure was the final nail in the proverbial coffin, an unceremonious end to an attraction that had operated since 1964.
“We knew, even pre-COVID, that there were maintenance issues,” Kozak said. In her opinion, “everybody's heart was in the right place in terms of trying to make [it] go forward,” but it wasn’t possible due to the cost of repairs and upgrades.
The 2025 park board report stated it would have cost $8 million to repair and upgrade the existing train, tracks, and building. Kozak said part of that cost would be to replace the entire train track. The report also noted that the disruptions were affecting its reputation, stating that the operational issues “reflect poorly” on the park board and the city.
Kozak said the company had been on notice since the pandemic, and park board staff kept them aware of what was happening with the train prior to Mortal Coil’s contract being cancelled. “None of this was ever a surprise,” she said, adding that the park board staff she dealt with were “completely fair about everything.”
After the 2024 cancellation, the park board suspended train operations indefinitely while it “explored new operating models and partnerships for the beloved attraction,” through a request for expressions of interest from third parties.
The closure will continue for the rest of the year, a park board spokesperson confirmed, adding “at this stage, there are no plans to permanently decommission [the train and its related infrastructure] until a future path forward for the attraction is decided on.”
The results of the expression of interest process will be presented to park board commissioners in late June, the next step in determining future plans for the site.
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