RESTORATION A locomotive engine, which is a remnant of the Manila-Dagupan trains, will be transferred to the old Philippine National Railway depot at Barangay Mayombo in Dagupan City once its restoration is completed. WILLIE LOMIBAO
DAGUPAN CITY—The first train station lounge in this city is slowly coming back to life, thanks to a group of elderly citizens who sees the site as a tourist attraction.
The roofless building, with its brick walls relatively intact, used to serve as the ticketing office and passenger lounge of the Ferrocarril de Manila-Dagupan, a 195-kilometer railroad line that started operating on Nov. 24, 1892.
In the 1960s, the building was used for storing cargo after the construction of a new and bigger ticketing office and passenger area.
The building was abandoned and its premises became a garbage dump when the state-run Philippine National Railways stopped the Manila-Dagupan line in 1988.
Jayceeken, a group of retired or former members of the Junior Chamber International, had pushed for the rehabilitation of the building because it is “one of the most prominent historical sites of the city,” said member Rex Catubig.
“The Ferrocarril de Manila-Dagupan, opened the corridor of commerce to Dagupan, making it more progressive. So the building has a historic, and at the same time, cultural significance,” said Catubig, Jayceeken’s project chair.
Train station park
“It has its romantic side, too. Some of the historical figures at the time took the train to reach northern Luzon. It was often said that Jose Rizal commuted via train to visit [his sweetheart] Leonor Rivera,” he said.
Rivera, who lived in Dagupan for a few years, eventually married Charles Kipping, an English engineer who supervised the construction of the northern terminal of the railway system at that time.
RESTORATION A locomotive engine, which is a remnant of the Manila-Dagupan trains, will be transferred to the old Philippine National Railway depot at Barangay Mayombo in Dagupan City once its restoration is completed. WILLIE LOMIBAO
Catubig said they wanted to convert the old station into a park, with a museum, coffee shop and souvenir store. “It can also be a venue for performances, music workshops and plays,” he said.
The locomotive engine, a remnant of the Manila-Dagupan trains that had been preserved and put on display at the city plaza, will also be transferred to the proposed park.
The project was launched last month. Dagupan Mayor Belen Fernandez announced that she was allocating P10 million as seed fund for the train station park.
She also said the city government would rehabilitate and preserve other heritage sites in Dagupan, among them the relics of the Franklin Bridge, which once spanned Barangay Calmay to the mainland, the 92-year-old municipal building, which is now the City Hall, and the former Vicar Hotel, which used to be the venue of important events in the city.
River cruise
Oscar Arcinue, Jayceeken founder, said his group also wanted to revive the city’s river cruise and island tours, which operated briefly in the last five years. “We have a lot of rivers. Why not use them for tourism,” he said.
This city is crisscrossed by seven rivers and 14 creeks that all drain into the Lingayen Gulf.
In May 2011, then Mayor Benjamin Lim launched a river cruise that started from a dock at the foot of Dawel Bridge from where it would inch its way to the inner parts of the river lined with mangrove patches.
But the river cruise was discontinued after Lim lost in the 2013 elections.
In 2014, Fernandez launched the city’s islands tour, which took tourists to the city’s different islands, where fish are cultured.