For many Winnipeggers, Christmas just won’t be the same this year.
Without the man primarily responsible for setting it up, the Assiniboine Valley Railway will not go ahead this holiday season.
Bill Taylor was ill and passed away in August. The club that ran the display says there is too much work involved to get it up and running. Club member Leonard Larue says Taylor always started working on the display every summer and continued right through until Christmas.
"Bill was the kind of guy who got it in his head to do something he would do it and do it completely. he had always had a passion for the Christ in Christmas. He liked Santa and all that, but in terms of the light display, he wanted it to celebrate Christmas " said Larue.
Taylor started the attraction more than 30 years ago and last year, the winter wonderland grew to 101 thousand lights.
While the display will not go ahead this year, Taylor’s family is vowing to bring it back to 2014.
His son Paul told CTV news “just as much as he's going to be missing from our family during this festive time we realize that this piece is going to be missing for a lot of families and we don't want that to go missing for more than one year."
Paul Taylor went on to say the family needs the year to gather enough volunteers to bring the display back to life the way his father would have wanted it.
