Banff’s Most-Photographed Sign Is Disappearing Again. Temporarily.

The giant “BANFF” sign beside the Train Station came down again on Thursday, less than six months after they were unveiled in their new home.

This time, though, the move is temporary.

The Town of Banff says the letters will be removed and placed into storage for roughly three to four weeks while crews finish construction around the new parkette beside the Train Station. That work includes new sidewalks and pathways, public seating areas, trees, and landscaping.

In other words, the sign itself is done. The space around it is not.

And yes, locals immediately had thoughts.

“Put it up on the Norquay bald spot. Like the Hollywood sign,” one commenter joked on Facebook.

Another added: “That sign sure gets around.”

Others were simply relieved the original Norquay Road location was gone.

“Thank god now just maybe no one will get hit by vehicles,” one person wrote.

That safety concern is ultimately why the sign moved in the first place.

The original location along Norquay Road had quietly become one of Banff’s busiest unofficial tourist attractions. Visitors routinely stopped along the shoulder, crossed traffic lanes, and lined up beside a busy road to grab photos with the mountains behind them.

Town council voted in 2025 to relocate the sign to a safer, pedestrian-friendly space beside the Train Station.

The move itself became a much bigger project than simply relocating a few steel letters.

Mt. Norquay owner Adam Waterous and his family funded the roughly $1.3 million project privately as part of a broader vision to redevelop the Train Station lands into a future transit and gathering hub. The new site includes plans for pathways, landscaping, benches, and improved public gathering areas tied into the Train Station district.

At the official unveiling last November, Banff Mayor Corrie DiManno called the sign “more popular than we could have imagined,” while Waterous described the former location as unsafe and said the new space would encourage visitors to park once and explore Banff on foot.

The relocation also quietly solved another issue: traffic flow.

Locals had long complained about vehicles slowing abruptly or pulling over unpredictably near the old sign location, especially during peak tourism season.

And from a tourism perspective, the new setup is probably a marketing goldmine.

Thousands of visitors now take photos with the sign framed by Mount Norquay and the historic Train Station area rather than beside a highway shoulder. For Banff, it transforms what was once a roadside pull-off into something much closer to an actual public gathering space.

For now, though, anyone hoping to grab the classic photo over the next few weeks may be out of luck.

The sign is expected to return sometime in June once construction wraps up.