JOURNAL OF THE C.R.H.A. PACIFIC COAST DIVISION
Vol. 41, No. 1, Issue 161

Spring 2016

ISSN 18188-1755

 B.C. Budd — CP’s Southern Mainline

In This Issue

 A four-day rail heritage circle tour
 40 years of The Sandhouse
 Evergreen Line update
Spring 2016 - Page 1

This journal is the official publication of the
CANADIAN RAILROAD
HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

PACIFIC COAST DIVISION

P.O. Box 1006, Station A, Vancouver, B.C. V6C 2P1

Table of Contents
To Our Readers

Page 3

Dates to Remember

Page 3

Division News

Page 4

Years Ago in The Sandhouse

Page 6

The Sandhouse marks
40 years of publication

Page 7

B.C. Budd — the Rail Diesel Car
on CP’s southern mainline

Page 14

Railway heritage circular tour
makes a nice short break

Page 27

Evergreen Line testing
reaches Coquitlam terminus

Page 36

Short Hauls
Canadian National
Canadian Pacific
BNSF
Southern Railway of B.C.
Rail Industry
VIA Rail
Rocky Mountaineer
Vancouver Island
West Coast Express
SkyTrain
Port News
Preservation
Index of Sandhouse features:
2013-2015 (Issues 149-160)

Page 39
Page 39
Page 40
Page 43
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Page 46
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Page 50
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Page 52

Press Date — May 20, 2016
Front cover: Canadian Pacific’s Dayliner service between Medicine Hat, Alta., and Nelson, B.C.,
was timed so that the eastbound and westbound trains would meet at Crowsnest, B.C., just west of the
Alberta border. In this 1962 view, looking eastward, RDC-2 CP 9107 is eastbound on Train 46 (left)
and RDC-2 CP 9100 is westbound on Train 45. (Photo by Forster Kemp; CRHA Archives, Fonds
Kemp 683)
Back cover: Doug Battrum, a stalwart leader of CRHA Pacific Coast Division, passed away on May
3. He served as President for 24 years, but his favourite role was as custodian of the Fraser Mills
Station Museum, which benefited many times from his handiwork. In this view, Doug is seen on August 27, 2011, with a replica order board that he had fashioned from plywood. (Photo by Ian Smith)

Page 2 - The Sandhouse

To Our Readers
After 40 years of continuous quarterly
publication, and still going strong, it’s time to
celebrate the medium that helps to bond the
membership of the CRHA’s Pacific Coast
Division.

Many members across the province, the country
and overseas live too far way to participate in
the Division’s local activities, but all can enjoy
The Sandhouse.
This issue begins with a look at how this journal
has evolved over the years, and some thoughts
about the future.
Our main article is a fitting subject for a
publication focused on B.C.’s railway history —
the third installment of the story of the Budd
Rail Diesel Car in this province.

Southern Mainline lasted only six years, and
little has been written on the subject, which we
attempt to overcome here.
Next, with summer approaching, we suggest a
brief circular tour from Vancouver that takes in
four railway attractions and can be
accomplished in just a few days.
Our feature coverage concludes with the regular
update on progress with the Evergreen Line,
which is tantalizingly close to completion.
Please don’t overlook the Division News on the
next two pages, as we say farewell to two of the
Division’s longest-serving leaders.
Ian Smith,
Editor

Unlike the long-lived RDC services on
Vancouver Island and through the Central
Interior, the use of Budd cars on CPR’s

Corrections
 On page 25 of the previous issue, it was stated incorrectly that BC Rail purchased VIA 6012,

which became BC-15. In fact, that RDC-1 was VIA 6102 (there was no car numbered VIA 6012).

Dates to Remember
June 16 — PCD Meeting, Renaissance Room, Place des Arts, Coquitlam, 19:30. (Entertainment:
Southern Railway of B.C., slides by Eric Johnson)

NOTE: With the post-summer season starting in September, PCD’s meeting date will change to
the third Friday of the month. Meetings will be held in Room 206 from 19:00 to 21:00.
September 16 — PCD Meeting, Place des Arts, Coquitlam, 19:00. (Entertainment TBA)
October 21 — PCD Meeting, Place des Arts, Coquitlam, 19:00. (Entertainment TBA)

Spring 2016 - Page 3

Division News
Members attending the monthly meetings have
enjoyed a diverse range of entertainment in the
past several months.
On February 18, Bill Johnston showed slides
of upgrading projects on CN in western
Canada, on which he worked while an
engineering student. On March 17, Eric
Johnson presented images of BC Rail’s remote
Stuart and Takla Subdivisions in the 1990s.
At the Annual General Meeting on April 21,
Doug Smith gave an illustrated lecture on the
history of the Grand Trunk Pacific, while on
May 19 Trevor Mills showed slides covering
his life-long interest in railways.
That meeting also saw the presentation of the
2016 Norris Adams Memorial Award to
Trevor, the West Coast Railway Association’s
Archivist and Manager of Rolling Stock.
Re-elected to the Board of Directors for
2016/17 at the AGM were President Chris
Wasney, Vice-President Ron Keillor, and
Secretary-Treasurer Ian Smith.

Trevor Mills (right) receives the 2016 Norris
Adams Memorial Award from Division
President Chris Wasney on May 19.

OBITUARY
Alan Shaw, a long-time member of CRHA Pacific Coast Division, passed away in Vancouver on
January 9 at the age of 87. Alan was a member for more than 30 years and served on the Board for
20 years, including terms as Secretary from 1987 to 1990 and Treasurer from 1996 to 2010.

Aside from his role on the Board, Alan was active in many ways, always willing to help with the
Division’s sales table at hobby shows and at open house events at Fraser Mills Station Museum. He
will be remembered for his kind and gentlemanly manner.
We offer our condolences to Bunny, Alan’s wife of 60 years, and other family members.

Page 4 - The Sandhouse

Long-time President Doug Battrum
passes away at 91
Pacific Coast Division’s longest-serving President, Doug Battrum, passed away in hospital in North
Vancouver on May 3, one day after his 91st birthday.
Doug had been a member of the Division for some 35 years and had served on the Board of Directors
continuously since 1982. Doug was President from 1985 to 1989 and from 1994 to 2014, some 24
years in all, and also served terms as Treasurer, Secretary and Vice-President.
He was particularly instrumental in the preservation and maintenance of the former CPR Fraser Mills
station, which the Division has operated as a museum since the mid-1980s.
Doug’s long service to the Division was honoured in 2010, when he completed his 20th year as
President, with a special Directors’ Award presented by the Board of Directors.
“We offer our condolences to Doug’s family,” said current President Chris Wasney. “Doug's hard
work and dedication were a great asset to our Division and we will be forever indebted to him for all
of his contributions."

Two long-serving members of Pacific Coast Division’s Board have passed away
this year. Alan Shaw (left) is seen presenting the Directors’ Award to Doug Battrum
on April 15, 2010, on the occasion of Doug completing 20 years as President.
Doug would serve another four years in the top post. (Photo by Tom Carr)
Spring 2016 - Page 5

YEARS AGO IN THE SANDHOUSE
40 Years Ago (April 1976 issue)
— The first issue of The Sandhouse is published, under the editorship of Mike Green.

35 Years Ago (April 1981 issue)
— CP celebrates 100th anniversary on February 16 with system-wide locomotive whistling.

30 Years Ago (April 1986 issue)
— CP locomotive 374 is moved on to the turntable at the Expo 86 site on February 12 .

25 Years Ago (March 1991 issue)
— CP Rail tests three General Electric C40-8W locomotives from Union Pacific.

20 Years Ago (March 1996 issue)
— E&N Railfreight is the new name for CP’s Vancouver Island operation.

15 Years Ago (March 2001 issue)
— SkyTrain marks 15 years of operation by honouring 500-millionth passenger.

10 Years Ago (Spring 2006 issue)
— The Island Corridor Foundation acquires the E&N lines on Vancouver Island.
— CP loses its Supreme Court battle with the City of Vancouver over the Arbutus Corridor.

5 Years Ago (Spring 2011 issue)
— VIA suspends passenger service on Vancouver Island on March 19 owing to track condition.

— Multi-billionaire Bill Gates now owns 10% of CN.
— Rocky Mountaineer introduces a new mid-level of service branded as Silver Leaf.
— West Coast Express cancels weekend TrainBus service.

Page 6 - The Sandhouse

The Sandhouse marks
40 years of publication
by Ian Smith
It was 40 years ago that The Sandhouse came
into being, and with this issue the quarterly publication of CRHA’s Pacific Coast Division enters its 41st year.
That first issue – dated April 1976 – was a simple effort, consisting of four sheets of legal- size
paper. The contents were sparse, typewritten
with double-spacing, and consisted simply of
short “bullet point” items of railway news from
around the world. These were posed as questions, in a “Did you know?” format.
Production was basic, with the original being
duplicated using a mimeograph machine.
Its purposes were simple, as stated by the Editor:
“This Newsletter is an attempt to keep our members more fully informed of what is happening
in the area of the Pacific Coast Branch of
CRHA. To do this successfully and interestingly, we needed correspondents who can contribute news regularly or spasmodically on each of
the major areas of the Vancouver scene: BCR,
BCHR, BNR, CNR, CPR and industrial lines.
Can you help? . . .
“The new executive would also like to use this
Newsletter as a vehicle for articles, stories and
comments that members would like to share
with others. So come on, all you frustrated authors, deluge us with material!”
The Sandhouse was created by its first Editor,
Mervyn T. “Mike” Green, who had only recently joined the Pacific Coast Branch (as it was
then known) but had already been elected President just one month before the first issue ap-

peared.
The Branch had started in 1970, but until Mike
took the initiative to launch The Sandhouse,
written communication among members consisted solely of a few items in the notices of the
monthly meetings.
There were already some avenues for publishing
information on railway history. The Branch had
produced a map of railway lines in Greater Vancouver and several basic “Railguides” on subjects ranging from railways of the MissionAbbotsford area (based on a Branch field trip) to
a 26-page history of the CPR’s English Bay
Branch (later expanded into a small book).
But with a regular publication, the Branch
would have a vehicle for publishing both current
railway news and articles with an historical focus.

That first issue was actually untitled. But a supply of covers intended for an earlier attempt to
launch a publication was soon unearthed, and
those were put to use from Issue No. 2 onward.
Printed on different shades of coloured stock,
these bore the title of “The Sandhouse” and featured a large drawing of such a structure (the
same drawing can be found in today’s publication, albeit in much smaller dimensions).
The covers were produced on heavier stock than
the internal pages, which were stapled at the top
to the wrap-around cover, and helped to give the
publication a sense of permanence compared
with merely plain paper.
Recalling that first issue years later,

Mike

Spring 2016 - Page 7

wrote: “It was unnamed, written entirely by myself, typed by my wife Rita on a Gestetner stencil, run off on a borrowed Gestetner machine by
me (what a messy job that was!), then stapled,
folded and addressed by a couple of my children
(who just “loved” helping Dad with his new
publication).”
It would be a while before the contents grew
beyond news of Branch activities and current
events of the local, national and international
railway scene, but the publication’s size steadily
expanded, with 16 pages (eight sheets of paper,
typed single-spaced on both sides) becoming
typical.
By Issue 20, photographs had begun to appear,
although their quality was limited by the method
of reproduction. Other contents of that issue
included brief descriptions of new books on
railways, a listing of musical pieces with railway
themes, a list of CPR tunnels in B.C. as of 1888,
and an article recounting the long-ago observations of Great Northern Railway steam engines
in the Vancouver area by a long-time local railfan.
Mike Green would stay at the helm through Issue 36 in January 1985, which ran to some 20
pages and was written on a word processor and
photocopied. Production quality had certainly
improved over those first nine years.
Taking over from Mike was Scott Austin, who
expressed appreciation that Mike would stay on
for a time as Associate Editor producing the
Short Hauls current news section.
Scott continued as Editor through Issue 45, with
John Picur taking the reins as of the next issue in
July 1987.
But less than four years after leaving the Editor’s chair, Mike Green was back with Issue 52
and he would remain in the saddle for another
five years through Issue 70.

With Issue 71 in September 1993, Lorne Nicklason took on the editorial challenge, and introduced himself to the readers with a short editorial titled: “New Editor Tackles Sandhouse: Although Sanity Questioned, He Dives in Anyway!”
Lorne wrote: “My biggest concern in taking on
the editorship is to maintain the quality of the
contents. The Division computer, on which this
issue is done, helps to give a nice looking publication, but that is not nearly as important as having significant content. That is where all of you
come in. I will be relying on members to pass
on major articles or minor bits of news that the
readers like to see.”
Mike Green remained a major contributor for
the next five years, including stints as Associate
or Assistant Editor.
Lorne soon made an impact on the publication
by turning it “sideways”, starting with Issue 73.
Although it continued to be printed on 8.5 x 14in. legal sized paper, The Sandhouse was now
produced in a horizontal format, with the staples
in a central spine, rather than at the top of a vertical page.
As Lorne wrote in that issue: “Since the first
issue of The Sandhouse appeared in April 1976,
it has had an unusual format, which was good
for some things, but was awkward to read. However, with a new editor (fairly full of enthusiasm) and a computer program to take care of the
complexities of this layout, it was unanimously
agreed to change to this book format. We have
also attempted to improve the quality of the photographs. Hope you like the ‘new’ Sandhouse!”
Accompanying this change was a departure
from using the large drawing of a sandhouse as
the cover illustration. Instead, Lorne selected an
appropriate photograph for each cover that represented the issue’s contents.
Under Lorne’s editorship, The Sandhouse regu-

Page 8 - The Sandhouse

lar featured longer articles than in the past, with
more detail and depth. For example, an article
on the construction and launch of West Coast
Express commuter service in Issue 80 ran to 20
pages, which would nearly have filled an entire
issue under the old format.
This was accompanied by much higher page
counts than in the past, with some issues running
to 64 pages, including the covers.
Lorne chose to bow out with Issue 100, and the
occasion was marked with the first-ever use of
colour photographs in The Sandhouse, with 10
shots gracing the outside and inside cover pages,
front and back.

With Issue 101 in March 2001, I took over as
Managing Editor, in charge of all the content,
while the role of designing, laying out and producing the issues was taken on by Bill White, as
Design & Production Editor.
Bill made numerous refinements to the design
concepts introduced by Lorne, and a significant
advance in photo reproduction was made
through the use of a photo scanner, as these devices were becoming affordable for consumerlevel users.
Issue 104 repeated the use of colour photography on the cover pages, the occasion being the

Page 3 of the very first issue at left displays the vertical format, with the text typed across
the page. At right is the cover of Issue 2, with the large drawing of a sandhouse that
would appear on every cover until 1992.
Spring 2016 - Page 9

return to steam of CPR Hudson locomotive No.
2816. Seven colour shots were used to depict
this momentous event in 21st-century railway
history.
Unfortunately, the use of colour photos is prohibitively expensive, almost doubling the usual
printing cost, so Issues 100 and 104 are the only
times this has been done.

Bill had to bow out after Issue 105 owing to
health reasons, and Lorne returned to assist with
the design and production of Issue 106 while a
replacement for Bill was sought.
Burc Cander stepped forward to take on those
duties as Layout & Design Editor, starting with
Issue 107 and continuing through Issue 120.
During that time, Burc gave me an orientation in
using the desktop publishing software that had
been used to design and layout the publication
since Lorne had been Editor. I was familiar with
the concepts of publication layout since my time

as an editorial apprentice with a trade magazine
company 30 years earlier, but was daunted by
the thought of doing this with a computer.
But Burc made the transition easy, and from
Issue 121 onward, I have handled all the design,
production and editorial functions.
While I do much of the feature article writing
myself and also write all of the Short Hauls current news items, I have enjoyed the help of numerous contributors of major articles over the
years, some of whom also contributed substantial pieces while Lorne was in charge.
In particular (and in alphabetical order) they are
Ken Atkey, Dave Davies, Henry Ewert, Patrick
Hind, Eric Johnson, David Meridew, Barrie Sanford and Robert Turner.

Also deserving of recognition are three regular
and frequent contributors of current news photographs, namely Corwin Doeksen, Ken Storey
and Chris Wasney.

Two significant milestones are marked by these examples. At left is the 20th Anniversary issue of March 1996, while at right is Issue 100, featuring the first-ever colour
photo to appear on a cover of The Sandhouse.
Page 10 - The Sandhouse

During my years as Editor, I have stuck closely
to the design format I inherited from Bill and
Burc. Even the nameplate of The Sandhouse –
the typeface used for the name on the cover – is
the same Imprint Shadow font that Lorne introduced with Issue 94 in December 1996.
One thing I have changed is the dating system.
With Issue 105, this changed to a seasonal date
rather than a month. This seemed more logical
for a quarterly publication and allows more flexibility. The Winter issue is usually published
between late January and mid-February, the
Spring issue in mid to late May, the Summer
issue in mid to late August, and the Autumn
issue in mid-November to early December.
Also, starting with my second issue, I changed
the publication’s title line from “Newsletter of
the C.R.H.A. Pacific Coast Division” to
“Journal of . . . ” This came after a suggestion
by member Henry Ewert that “newsletter” did
not truly reflect the nature of the contents. Indeed, the only part of The Sandhouse that could
be considered to be a newsletter is the Division
News, which usually occupies only one page.
As for the page count, I strive to produce a 48page issue each time, and have only fallen short
of that a few times in 61 issues. In the past two
years, most issues have actually been 52 or 56
pages long, largely because they contained rather long main feature articles. A 56-page issue
is the practical maximum limit because 60 pages
would cross the threshold into the next increment of postage rates, thereby adding more than
a dollar to the cost of each individual mailing.
While I have continued to use the same
“rainbow” of colours for the wrap-around cover,
in 2006 I started to apply these colours systematically, with powder blue for the Winter issue,
pale green for Spring, light yellow for Summer,
and pumpkin orange for Autumn.

when grabbing back issues off the shelf. My
collection of Sandhouse issues is probably the
most well-worn there is, as I constantly refer to
past issues when I’m working on the current
edition.
But I hope I’m not alone in that, as I deliberately
produce the contents to serve as a continuum of
information. While the issues are published at
quarterly intervals, I view the content as flowing
from one to the next, particularly with the Short
Hauls current events, which are ever-changing.
A tangible sign of that are the frequent references to items and articles that have appeared in
past issues, often quite some time ago. I try to
make it easy for readers to find related information that has previously been written on the
same subject, in the hope that you – like me –
treat The Sandhouse as a publication worth collecting, rather than being used to line the birdcage once read.
Given the small dimensions of each issue, storage shouldn’t be a problem. The photo below
shows a full 20 years of back issues easily fitting
on to a bookshelf just 14 inches wide. Two such
shelves would hold all 161 issues published to
date.
Thus far, I have only dealt with the mechanical
details of my approach to the editorship. What
Editors of The Sandhouse
Mike Green – Issues 1-36 (1976-85)
Scott Austin – 37-45 (1985-87)
John Picur – 46-51 (1987-88)
Mike Green – 52-70 (1988-93)
Lorne Nicklason – 71-100 (1993-2000)
Ian Smith – 101-present (2001-present)

I did this partly for my own ease of reference
Spring 2016 - Page 11

about the editorial focus itself?
The early issues back in the 1970s and into the
1980s had an eclectic approach, covering railway matters far and wide, particularly in the
current events section. For example, Short
Hauls items in the April 1980 issue included
mentions of work on the new French high-speed
line between Paris and Lyons and on a new railway in Siberia.
My geographical focus is much tighter. There
are numerous fine publications covering railways on other continents and in other countries
and provinces, not to mention innumerable
sources on the Internet, so The Sandhouse concentrates entirely on British Columbia, Yukon,
and very occasionally the neighbouring U.S.
states in the Cascadia region.

National developments involving Canada’s two
major railways and VIA are also grist for the

mill insofar as that news has relevance for this
region.
As for the distinction between “history” and
current news, this is a relative concept, as today’s news is history in the making. I’ve taken
the approach that it is much easier to record details of events as they are unfolding than to ferret out obscure facts 50 years later.

Hence the detailed coverage I’ve given to the
building of the Millennium Line and Canada
Line in the past and now the Evergreen Line.
What is published today while these developments are fresh will make the work of researchers decades from now that much easier.
And for those who feel this is a little bit too
much transit news, as opposed to “real” railways, I say that the building of new railways is
fascinating, and rapid transit lines are almost the
only new railways being built in this century.
I also try to give ample space to news of B.C.’s
port developments where they concern railways,
on the grounds that B.C.’s ocean ports have always been the raison d’etre for its railways, and
likely always will be.
The recent coverage given to the story of Budd
Rail Diesel Cars is another example of the publication’s focus. It was only 60-some years ago
that the Budd car made its first appearance in
B.C., well within the lifetime of many readers.
And it wasn’t until five years ago that RDCs
made their last revenue run. So what was current not that long ago has now passed into history, and certainly within the scope of a railway
historical publication.
So that is The Sandhouse at 40 years. What of
the future?

Eighty issues of The Sandhouse, covering 20
years, handily fit on a bookshelf 14 in. wide.
Page 12 - The Sandhouse

I sometimes get asked if The Sandhouse should
be published in some electronic format rather
than in print. That overlooks the fact that a full
one-third of the Division’s members do not pro-

vide an e-mail address in their annual renewal
forms. From that, it is fair to assume that they
do not have Internet access and therefore could
not receive the publication if it were only provided online or distributed via e-mail.
Beyond that, there would be the matter of securing the delivery of an online publication so that
it is available only to those who have paid for it,
which itself would involve an expense.

So as I look to the future of The Sandhouse, I’m
reminded of the words of Mike Green in the first
edition, when he said: “. . . come on, all you
frustrated authors, deluge us with material!”
I, too, would welcome a deluge.

And if delivery is online, would it make sense to
produce a conventional “print-style” publication
at quarterly intervals? Why not publish news
items as they happen and articles as they are
completed, daily if needed? Not that I’m volunteering to do so.
More important than technology for the future of
The Sandhouse are the people who produce it.
I’ve been Editor for 15 years now, and have
produced more issues than any of my predecessors, even Mike Green. My health permitting,
I’m willing to keep going as long as the well of
ideas doesn’t run dry, so suggestions from readers are always welcome.
But the publication needs regular contributors as
well as an editor. I’ve already mentioned eight
stalwart contributors who have written nearly all
of the articles that weren’t produced by me. One
of those gentlemen has passed away, several
others are well into their eighties, and all are
well beyond retirement age.
Are there others behind them in younger generations who are prepared to pick up the torch and
delve into the history of our province’s railways,
and bring it to light on the printed page?

The answer to that question, more than any other, will determine whether The Sandhouse has a
long future ahead, and I daresay the same could
be said of many other publications that are produced entirely by volunteers.

Spring 2016 - Page 13

B.C. Budd — the Rail Diesel Car
on CPR’s southern mainline
by Ian Smith
Canadian Pacific’s second RDC service in
British Columbia had nowhere near the
longevity of the first, the Victoria-Courtenay run
on Vancouver Island, lasting just short of six
years.
But as originally conceived, it would have made
its mark in the annals of RDC history as the
longest continuous run in Canada, some 962.6
miles between Medicine Hat, Alta., and
Vancouver, taking more than 28 hours.
That was the plan, but it didn’t come to pass as
intended.
A Medicine Hat to Vancouver train running via
Crowsnest Pass and CP’s “second mainline”
through southern British Columbia had been
introduced in 1919, serving such Interior B.C.
towns as Cranbrook, Nelson and Penticton.
In the April 28, 1957 schedule, just before the
dawn of the RDC era, the conventional dieselpowered train on that route took exactly 41
hours to complete the westbound journey,
departing Medicine Hat at 18:30 Mountain Time
and arriving in Vancouver at 10:30 Pacific Time
on the third day (all journey times adjusted for
the time-zone change).
Numbered Train 67, it consisted of a through
coach making the whole journey, a parlour car
from Cranbrook to Vancouver, a sleeper from
Lethbridge to Vancouver, and a sleeper from
Penticton to Vancouver.
Sleeper passengers from Lethbridge to the coast
would spend two nights aboard the train, while
those joining at Penticton would board at 15
minutes past midnight, with arrival in late
Page 14 - The Sandhouse

morning.

Eastbound Train 68 operated with the same
consist, leaving Vancouver at 18:50 and arriving
at Medicine Hat at 11:20 on the third day, a run
of 39 hr., 30 min.
A 1957 study by CP showed that losses on
Trains 67/68 were $833,000 per year and the
company decided that express, mail and lessthan-carload (LCL) freight could be handled
more economically by truck, with passenger
service to be operated with RDCs, or Dayliners
as CP termed the self-propelled cars.
By July that year, CP had ordered six rail diesel
cars costing about $255,000 each. Four of the
cars were to be used for regular service, with
two on standby.
CP aimed at slashing nearly 11 hours off the
schedule with the introduction of RDCs, with a
10:20 departure from “the Hat” and an arrival
next day in Vancouver at 15:40, a run of 30 hr.,
20 min. The eastbound train would leave
Vancouver at 13:50. reaching Medicine Hat at
20:20 the next day, after a trip of 29 hr., 30 min.
Both trips included a lengthy stop at Lethbridge
for a meal, as the RDCs were not equipped for
meal service.
Here, it should be noted that CP was already
serving those travelling all the way between
Medicine Hat and Vancouver with its flagship
streamlined train The Canadian, introduced two
years earlier and running via Calgary and the
Kicking Horse Pass route.
That premier
transcontinental train would whisk westbound
passengers between those two points in just 25

hr., 5 min., with departure and arrival in midmorning. The eastbound departure from
Vancouver in mid-evening would be matched
with a similar arrival, after a trip of exactly 24
hours.

propelled RDCs. (Indeed, the employee
timetables of the era would note that “Rail diesel
cars may exceed authorized passenger train
speeds by ten miles per hour on straight track.
All other speed restrictions must be observed.”)

With that faster and more convenient schedule,
it can be assumed that travellers making the
whole journey would opt for The Canadian,
leaving the southern route to those travelling
less than the full distance.

The interim solution was to run an
extraordinarily short train, consisting of one
diesel locomotive hauling just one baggage car
and one coach. The public timetable included a
terse note – “Diesel train operation, carrying
coaches only, until Rail Diesel Cars available –
expected in January.”
The RDCs were still not available in January,
and by then a second snag had emerged, one
beyond the usual realm of railway operation.

The schedule for the RDC-equipped trains,
numbered 45 and 46, went into effect on
October 26, 1957, but there was a snag. CP had
yet to take delivery of a sufficient number of
RDCs to launch the service as intended.
This presented the challenge of operating to a
much more demanding schedule with
conventional equipment that ordinarily could not
match the fast acceleration of Budd’s self-

For many years, the southern Interior had
experienced a terrorist campaign waged by the
Sons of Freedom, a radical breakaway sect from
the Doukhobor community of Russian
immigrants who had settled the Boundary region

CP 9199 and a sister RDC-2 depart Vancouver with Train 46 for Penticton on February
21, 1959. (Photo by Roger Burrows)
Spring 2016 - Page 15

in the early 20th century. The tactics of the
radicals ranged from mass public nudity to arson
and bombings, the latter involving railway
tracks and bridges, public schools, electricity
transmission towers and even the courthouse in
Nelson.
With tensions running high in the early days of
1958, CP took the precaution of not running
passenger trains in darkness through the region.
This meant that after February 3, 1958, Trains
45 and 46 would be curtailed, with service
between Nelson and Penticton running
westbound on Mondays and Thursdays only and
eastbound trains running only on Tuesdays and
Fridays, all in daylight hours.

This change came just prior to the launch of
RDC service.
On February 7, an RDC-3 numbered CP 9022
ran as a non-revenue test train from Nelson to
Vancouver. That wasn’t the very first
appearance of RDCs on this line, as two RDC-1
cars had run through to Vancouver for publicity
purposes on August 21, 1954, stopping for a
public display in Penticton. One of those cars
was CP 9055; the other’s identity is unknown.
Ultimately, six RDCs would be assigned to
cover Medicine Hat to Vancouver service,
allowing for one or two to be on standby to
cover maintenance issues. These were drawn

Photographs of RDCs on the remote Coquihalla Subdivision are rare, but fortunately
we have this detailed drawing by railway historian Gerry Doeksen to illustrate the rugged scene. Here, RDC-2 9198 is eastbound at Coquihalla station with Train 46, passing
the enclosed water tower. (Copyright Gerry Doeksen, used with permission)
Page 16 - The Sandhouse

from an 11-car fleet based at Calgary, which
also served on the Calgary-Edmonton and
Calgary-Lethbridge runs.
Nearly all the cars used between Medicine Hat
and Vancouver were of the RDC-2
configuration, with a small baggage area and
from 68 to 71 seats. One RDC-3, with a 30-ft.
baggage section and only 48 seats, was used
regularly from Penticton westward.
On March 3, 1958, RDC-2 CP 9197 made the
first revenue run on the Vancouver-Nelson
section. But it wouldn’t be until later in the year
that RDCs were used on the Nelson-Medicine
Hat leg of Trains 45 and 46, after enough cars
had been delivered. And by that time, the
service was no longer a continuous trip.

The April 27, 1958 timetable was the first issued
after the launch of RDC service. This continued
the policy instituted as of February 4, restricting
the Nelson-Penticton section to daylight running
only and on just two days of the week in each
direction, as outlined above.
In effect, Trains 45 and 46 were cut into three
distinct operations, with two overnight stops for
the hypothetical passenger travelling from endto-end.
The revised westbound schedule had Train 45
leaving Medicine Hat at 09:10 MT and arriving
at Nelson at 20:55 PT. Its eastbound counterpart
left Nelson at 07:00, reaching Medicine Hat at
20:30. The two trains, each operated with a
single RDC-2, were scheduled to meet at
Crowsnest, just inside B.C. near the provincial
border.

CP RDC-2 9199 is seen from the rear at Brookmere, running as Train 46 from Vancouver, on May 27, 1959. At this point, the service still operated via the Coquihalla route,
and on this day a single car sufficed for the available traffic. Its “zebra stripe” cab
front is shown to good effect on this sunny day. (Photo by John Rushton)
Spring 2016 - Page 17

Between Nelson and Penticton, the single-car
westbound train left at 07:00 on Mondays and
Thursdays, reaching the Okanagan town at
15:20, and returning the next day. At Penticton,
continuing passengers could make a convenient
transfer to the daily Vancouver section, which
departed at 15:30, arriving in the metropolis at
22:40.

The Vancouver-Penticton service effectively
operated as a round-trip, leaving Vancouver at
08:00 and reaching Penticton at 15:05, before
departing on the return journey 25 minutes later.
This was operated with one or two cars,
sometimes including an RDC-3.
Those wishing to travel eastward from Penticton
could only do so on Tuesdays and Fridays, but
not as a continuous journey from points farther
west, because the departure was at 08:00. A trip
from Vancouver to Grand Forks, for example,
would thus entail an overnight stay in Penticton.
Arrival of this section of Train 46 at Nelson was
at 16:15.
There, the onward eastbound traveller would
have to spend the night before catching the next
day’s Train 46 at 07:00 toward Cranbrook and
destinations in Alberta.
Thus, the plan to speed up the southern mainline
service with fast RDCs had backfired. True, the
scheduled running time from Medicine Hat to
Vancouver was just 28 hr., 15 min., a great
improvement over the pre-RDC service. But the
actual end-to-end time of the journey including
the overnight stop was 38 hours, hardly better
than the 41 hours previously available on an
uninterrupted trip with conventional equipment.

And the pre-RDC service had been provided
daily, but now the 260.3-mile Nelson-Penticton
leg was offered only by twice-weekly trains.
The reaction of Southern Interior communities
to this state of affairs was predictable, and
Page 18 - The Sandhouse

complaints by various bodies, including several
chambers of commerce, led to a series of
hearings during 1959 by the Board of Transport
Commissioners (BTC).
The Nelson Chamber of Commerce told the
BTC that it wanted reinstatement of daily
through service to Vancouver of 15 hours or
better, along with lunch service and other
amenities.
Ultimately, the BTC ordered that through
service be instituted by July 31, 1959, provided
that sufficient protective service against
sabotage could be achieved through a costsharing agreement between CP and the B.C.
government, and on condition that both CP and
its running trades agreed that the measures were
adequate. This reinstated service was to continue
for one year, at which point CP could apply to
the BTC for a variance based on traffic figures
for the route as a whole and Nelson-Penticton in
particular.
However, agreement on cost-sharing could not
be reached, as the province tried to deflect
responsibility for security on to the army and
thus the federal government.
In the absence of a cost-sharing agreement, the
BTC ruled on January 4, 1960, that it could not
order resumption of through service. However,
it stated that if protective measures were
instituted later and CP had not then voluntarily
resumed through service, aggrieved parties
could apply to BTC for such an order.
Roughly a month before the BTC’s ruling, these
events had been overtaken by the forces of
nature, which would imperil the future of the
service far more than the initial late delivery of
RDCs and the disruption of through service by
the threat of sabotage.
This took the form of a series of substantial
washouts on the Coquihalla Subdivision that
would ultimately lead to its closure.
On
November 22, 1959, RDC-2 9197, running as

Two scenes at Penticton show single-car trains in operation in 1963, the
last full year of service. Above RDC-2 CP 9197, a Phase 2 model, leaves
town on Train 45 westward to Spences Bridge on June 13. (Photo by John
Rushton)
Below, CP 9012, a Phase 1 RDC-2 with larger cab windows and a single
roof-mounted numberboard, lays over at the Okanagan city’s mock-Tudor
station on July 31. (Photo by Roger Burrows)

Spring 2016 - Page 19

westbound Train 45, would be the last passenger
train ever to operate via Coquihalla Pass, as the
washouts that closed the line the following day
would sound the death knell for this fabled
route. It would never re-open and was officially
abandoned in 1961.
CP reacted to the severing of the line by
diverting trains to run via the Merritt
Subdivision between Brodie and Spences
Bridge, the junction with the Cascade
Subdivision on the transcontinental mainline.
Until March, through RDC service was
maintained between Penticton and Vancouver,
but the longer route (by some 103 miles) led to
the westbound train arriving in Vancouver at
about 02:00, although passengers were allowed
to remain on board there until a more civilized
hour.
After that, Penticton service was truncated at
Spences Bridge, with nocturnal connections to
and from Vancouver provided on Trains 7 and 8,
the transcontinental Dominion service. This
change was formalized in the April 24, 1960
public timetable.
Westbound, this would see a single RDC
departing from its base at Penticton at 19:00 and
arriving at 00:30 in Spences Bridge, where the
Vancouver-bound Dominion was scheduled to
stop at 01:10, with arrival in Vancouver at
07:45.
On Mondays and Thursdays, a single car left
Nelson at 09:00, arriving in Penticton at 17:15,
and then forming the train to Spences Bridge at
19:00, allowing time for dinner in between (on
those two days, the Penticton-based RDC was
not used).
To the east of Nelson, the first leg of Train 45
now departed Medicine Hat at 09:55, arriving in
Nelson at 17:15. Passengers continuing west
from there would still need to spend the night in

Page 20 - The Sandhouse

the Kootenay town before taking the Monday or
Thursday train toward Penticton.
The eastbound Dominion from Vancouver
departed at 20:00, exactly 12 hours later than the
customary RDC timing. It deposited onward
passengers at Spences Bridge at 02:35, where
the RDC that had arrived after midnight for the
westbound connection would be waiting, for an
02:50 departure. Penticton was reached at
08:20, which was shortened to 08:00 in later
timetables.
On Tuesdays and Fridays, the car from Spences
Bridge would continue on from Penticton at
08:50, arriving in Nelson at 17:05.
The train for Medicine Hat now left Nelson at
06:45, arriving at its Alberta terminus at 20:00,
which was extended by five minutes in later
schedules. As with the westbound train, an
overnight stay in Nelson was required for those
coming from farther west and continuing
eastward from the Kootenay town.
The greatest variation in these times came
during the summertime peaks in 1962 and 1963,
when the Dominion was superseded by Trains 4
and 5, the Soo-Dominion, whose eastern origin
was in St. Paul, Minn.
Train 4 left Vancouver at 18:30, or 90 minutes
earlier than the Dominion, stopping at Spences
Bridge at 00:35, meaning that passengers for the
RDC service had to cool their heels for more
than two hours waiting for the Budd car to leave
at its regular time of 02:50.
Westbound, the Soo-Dominion’s timing resulted
in some very tight connections at Spences
Bridge. Train 45 was re-timed to leave Penticton
30 minutes earlier in Summer 1962, reaching
Spences Bridge at 23:45, just five minutes
before Train 5 was due to leave for Vancouver,
with its arrival scheduled at 07:00.
The following summer, Train 45 was slated to

At left, CP 9022, the only RDC-3 known to have operated on the southern mainline,
rests at Penticton on July 26, 1960, beside CPA 16-4 4065 with RDC-2 9196 behind.
Later that day, the photographer shot 4065 leading 9196 eastward toward Nelson;
perhaps the RDC was “bad ordered”. (Photo by Dave Wilkie, WCRA Archives)
Below, RDC-2 CP 9197 is westbound on Train 45 at Midway in 1962. (Photo by Forster Kemp; CRHA Archives, Fonds Kemp 694)

Spring 2016 - Page 21

depart Penticton at 18:15, so it could arrive in
Spences Bridge at 23:30, a more comfortable 20
minutes ahead of Train 5’s departure. On the
other hand, Train 45’s re-timing meant a wait of
65 minutes at Spences Bridge in the shoulder
season when Train 7 ran instead of Train 5.
With these timings, and the additional
inconvenience of another connection at Spences
Bridge, it is hardly surprising that ridership
declined from minimal to almost non-existent.
In 1959, the last year of operation via the
Coquihalla route, the average number of
passengers per train between Penticton and
Odlum (the junction with the Cascade
Subdivision just west of Hope) was 28. When
the service was diverted to Spences Bridge, the
numbers between there and Penticton dropped to
10 in 1960 and nine in each of 1961 and 1962.

These figures come from the Board of Transport
Commissioners’ report on CP’s application in
1963 to discontinue Trains 45-46 over the 761
miles between Lethbridge and Spences Bridge.
CP cited a four-month survey of passenger
traffic taken from January through April in both
1962 and 1963, which showed that of the 125
stations along that route, fully 85 had seen no
passengers boarding or alighting in those eight
months.
The railway stated that 1961 had recorded gross
revenue of $102,100 against gross expenses of
$549,500, for a net deficit of $447,400. Revenue
was almost entirely from passenger fares, as
only a small amount of express traffic was
handled and mail was carried only between
Penticton and Brookmere.

RDC-1 CP 9055 and an unidentified sister are seen at Nelson’s grand station in August
1954 on a cross-country demonstration run. This was the first appearance of RDCs on
the southern mainline. (CP Corporate Archives)
Page 22 - The Sandhouse

In 1962, gross revenue had dropped to $86,100
while gross expenses rose to $596,100, for a net
deficit of $510,000. In reviewing these figures,
the BTC disallowed some expenses, reducing
the total to $470,500, for a deficit of $385,000.
Still, that was enough to sway the BTC to agree
with CP’s request, despite the hearings that
brought out local politicians to argue for a full
daily through service without the overnight stopovers.
On October 23, 1963, the BTC ordered as
follows: “The Canadian Pacific Railway
Company, on or after the 16th day of January,
1964, is authorized to discontinue the operation
of trains 45 and 46 between Lethbridge, Alberta,
and Spences Bridge, British Columbia, upon
sixty days’ prior notice filed with the Board and
posted in each railway station served by the said

trains. The said notice shall also be published in
one issue of a newspaper published or having
general circulation in each of Fernie, Cranbrook,
Creston, Nelson, Trail, Penticton, Princeton and
Merritt.”
All that remained was for the trains to make
their final runs.
On January 17, 1964, RDC-2 9100 ran
eastbound as Train 46 from Spences Bridge to
Penticton in the usual early morning hours,
carrying only one fare-paying passenger. That
day being a Friday, the Penticton to Nelson run
was scheduled to operate and so RDC-3 9022
coupled on to 9100 at the Okanagan town for the
final trip through the Boundary region, marking
a rare instance of a two-car RDC train operating
between those two towns.
Boarding the train at Penticton for its 08:50

RDC-2 CP 9199 is westbound on Train 45 at Fernie, en route to Nelson from Medicine
Hat, in this undated photograph by Forster Kemp. Note the station details and outsidebraced wooden boxcars. (CRHA Archives, Fonds Kemp 680)
Spring 2016 - Page 23

departure were 72 members of the town’s
branch of the Okanagan Historical Society.
Swelling the train’s usual ridership more than
tenfold, the group rode 122 miles east as far as
Rock Creek, returning via two chartered
Greyhound coaches.
The next day saw three RDCs leaving Nelson
for Calgary, running empty under their own
power on the schedule of Train 46, which was
thereafter annulled until the end of the current
timetable. Cars 9100 and 9022 were joined for
this movement by a third car, which had come
from Lethbridge the day before.
With the discontinuation of Trains 45 and 46
west of Lethbridge, the Medicine HatLethbridge section of the run was maintained, to
the same timing, by RDC trains numbered 307
and 308. By the time that service ended in July
1971, it had been extended west to Fort

McLeod, with the trains numbered 308 and 309.
As noted, 11 RDCs were allocated to Calgary,
with six at a time assigned to the service from
Medicine
Hat
through
southern
B.C.
Photographic evidence and official CP records
have identified eight cars in revenue service on
this route: a lone RDC-3, 9022, and seven RDC2s: 9100, 9102, 9107, 9196, 9197, 9198 and
9199. As mentioned, RDC-1 9055 and another
RDC-1 were used on a non-revenue publicity
trip in 1954.
The demise of Trains 45 and 46 brought the
scheduled passenger train era on B.C.’s southern
mainline to an end. A charter train of
conventional equipment did operate westward
over the route in the summer of 1964 and the
summers of 1983 and 1984 saw the B.C.
Chapter of the National Railway Historical
Society running an Okanagan Express excursion

As depicted on the cover, the Medicine Hat to Nelson trains in each direction met at
Crowsnest. In this July 1961 view, looking westward, two trains formed of single RDC-2
cars are making their station stop. (Photo by D. Prosser, Marc Simpson collection)
Page 24 - The Sandhouse

train from Vancouver to Penticton via Spences
Bridge, using the group’s own preserved rolling
stock.

Budd RDCs in regular service on CPR’s Southern B.C. Mainline
RDC-2: 9100, 9102, 9107, 9196, 9197, 9198, 9199.
RDC-3: 9022.
Total = 8
Cars 9022, 9102 and 9199 were also among the 13 CP RDCs operated on CP’s Esquimalt
& Nanaimo Railway on Vancouver Island. Thus, the total number of CP RDCs operated in
revenue service in B.C. is 18.
CP 9197 would end its service life as BC-23, the only RDC-2 in the BC Rail fleet.
RDC-1 9055 and another RDC-1 ran across the southern mainline on a non-revenue publicity trip in August 1954.

Spring 2016 - Page 25

REFERENCES
Board of Transport Commissioners. Files 27563.56.14 and 27563.56.16, January 4, 1960. Adequacy
of Train Service Being Furnished by Canadian Pacific Railway Company on its Line Between
Vancouver, B.C., and Medicine Hat, Alta., via Nelson, B.C.
Board of Transport Commissioners. File 27563.56.16, October 23, 1963. Application of the
Canadian Pacific Railway Company for an Order Authorizing it to Discontinue the Operation of
Passenger Trains Nos. 45 and 46 between Lethbridge, Alta., and Spences Bridge, B.C.
Corley, Ray. The Budd RDC in Canada. Toronto: Upper Canada Railway Society, September 1967.
Garden, John. The Crow and the Kettle. Cowley, Alta.: Footprint Publishing Co., 2004.
Hope, Jim. Canadian Pacific in the Okanagan and Kootenay Valleys of British Columbia (The Early
Years of Diesels). Calgary: British Railway Modellers of North America, 1992.
Sanford, Barrie. Steel Rails and Iron Men: A Pictorial History of the Kettle Valley Railway.
Vancouver: White Cap Books, 1990.

Smuin, Joe. Canadian Pacific’s Kettle Valley Railway. Calgary: British Railway Modellers of North
America, 1997.
Turner, Robert. West of the Great Divide. Victoria: Sono Nis Press, 1987.
Canadian Pacific Railway timetables in the CRHA Pacific Coast Division’s Archives.
Notes and data provided to the author by Barrie Sanford and Joe Smuin.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Photographs were provided by Roger Burrows (from his personal collection), Peter Murphy (photos
by Forster Kemp from the Canadian Railroad Historical Association Archives), Robert Hunter (from
the Dave Wilkie collection in the West Coast Railway Association Archives), John Rushton and Marc
Simpson. We gratefully acknowledge Dave Wilkie’s heirs, Michael Dunham-Wilkie and Lorraine
Buchanan, for their permission to use his photographs.
Thanks to Gerry Doeksen for use of the drawing from his book “Kettle Valley Railway”, Volume 1.

Page 26 - The Sandhouse

Railway heritage circle tour
makes a nice short break
by Ian Smith
With summer approaching, here’s a suggestion
for a brief tour of some heritage railway
highlights in southwestern B.C. that can be
accomplished with only a couple of days of
vacation time away from work.
This circular tour from Vancouver takes in
Canada’s second largest railway museum, a
scenic two-hour ride on a mainline railway for
just $10, and two trips behind 104-year-old
Consolidation steam locomotives.

I made this trip in July of 2012, taking five days
in all, but it could actually be done in four days,
or even three, although that would be pushing it.
The operating dates of the attractions dictate the
timing of the itinerary, requiring the tour to be
made in a clockwise direction from Vancouver,
starting on a Thursday. And to visit all of these,
the trip must be made in July or August.

For information on the museum’s exhibits,
opening hours and admission fees, visit
www.wcra.org.
I left the museum at 16:00, heading north toward
Lillooet, where I had booked a motel room for
the night.
Google Earth estimates the driving time at 2 hr.,
45 min., but I was in no hurry, hoping to see and
photograph some trains along the way. Indeed, I
detoured from Mount Currie toward D’Arcy to
catch the southbound Rocky Mountaineer in
action, getting my shot about four miles north of
Mount Currie at 18:20.
From there, I retraced my steps to the Duffy
Lake route on Highway 99, reaching Lillooet in
time to photograph a southbound CN freight
arriving at 19:50.

Here’s how I did it.

Friday, July 27

Thursday, July 26

It was essential to be in Lillooet for Friday
morning because that is the only day of the week
when round-trips can be made south from there
to Seton Portage on the unique Kaoham Shuttle
running along the shore of Seton Lake.

My journey began with a drive along the Sea-toSky Highway to Squamish in fine weather,
arriving at the West Coast Railway Heritage
Park just before 13:30. The light was excellent
for photography and I spent an interesting two
and a half hours roaming the site.

The attractions of the museum are too numerous
to list in detail. Suffice to say that some of the
prime exhibits include Royal Hudson 2860, two
ex-BC Rail RDCs, classic F-unit diesels,
immaculately restored passenger cars, and a
PGE RSC-3 diesel unit.

The shuttle is scheduled at exactly one hour
each way for the 18.3-mile journey, with the
return trip costing just $10.
Six days a week, the shuttle makes a single
round-trip, starting from remote Seton Portage
and returning in the afternoon. Those logistics
make it difficult for most visiting tourists to ride.

Spring 2016 - Page 27

But on Fridays, there is a least one round-trip
south from Lillooet and back, making this the
best day of the week for outsiders to ride just for
fun.
The first northbound trip from Seton arrives at
Lillooet at 10:30, with the southbound journey
scheduled to depart immediately. It reaches
Seton at 11:30, laying over for 30 minutes
before leaving again at noon, with arrival at
Lillooet at 13:00.
If at least six passengers have made a booking,
the shuttle will also make an optional mid-day
southbound trip from Lillooet at 13:30. In turn,
that would result in a northbound departure from
Seton at 14:30. If sufficient reservations have
been made, passengers arriving at Seton on the
first southbound at 11:30 will be advised that

they have the choice of returning 30 minutes
later at noon (as described above) or waiting
until 14:30 to return to Lillooet.
That option was available on the day of my trip,
and about half of the “tourist” passengers opted
to spend three hours at Seton and return on the
later train.
In my case, I wanted to return to Lillooet as
soon as possible so I could spend the afternoon
railfanning north of town on the way to my next
stop-over.
Although the shuttle is operated by CN, the
service is administered by the Seton Lake Indian
Band (Tsalath First Nation). Full details on the
shuttle schedule and how to make bookings can

CP FP7A 4069 rests beside the station built by WCRA in 2000 to a 1915 design intended for use at Squamish, at West Coast Railway Heritage Park. (All photos by Ian Smith)
Page 28 - The Sandhouse

be found at www.tsalalh.net/shuttle.html.
make a reservation, call 1-250-259-8300.

To

Reservations are essential, and must be made at
least two days in advance. I had reserved on the
Monday of that week by phoning and leaving
my request for one round-trip ticket on the
answering machine. I did not get a confirmation
call-back, but this sufficed to make my
reservation, with payment to be made on
boarding.

and it was obvious that most were tourists.
Knowing that the train’s capacity is 32
passengers if both cars are in use, I could tell
right away that not all would be able to ride, and
it soon became clear from the chatter that some
did not have reservations.

Assuming that Sandhouse readers want the “best
seat in the house” for viewing and photography,
take heed of the following.

The train from Seton pulled in with a sizeable
load in the two cars, and waiting passengers
stood clear as the arrivals detrained. Smugly
thinking that my railfan knowledge gave me an
advantage over the ordinary tourist, I waited by
the door of what would be the leading car
southbound, aiming to get the front seat with a
clear view forward out of the cab windows.

When I arrived at Lillooet station about 15
minutes before train time on the Friday morning,
a crowd was already waiting on the platform,

That was a mistake. It eventually dawned on me
that the ticketing action was taking place outside
the door of what would be the rear car. There,

The view from the CN Roundhouse and Conference Centre shows an ex-PGE bunk car
on the turntable and numerous passenger cars beyond.
Spring 2016 - Page 29

the train “host”, an employee of the Seton Lake
band, was checking off reservations against the
list and taking payments, after which passengers
were free to board.

remarking that this was where the host would be
sitting and decided that, as there would be room
for two, I’d take a chance that he wouldn’t mind
my company.

I realized that, far from being at the head of the
queue, I was at the back, aside from those who
had not made reservations. By the time I had
paid and was allowed to board, most seats in
both cars taken and I got on the rear car to take a
rather confined seat near the rear, with the view
to one side blocked by the toilet compartment.

When he finally boarded, he in fact let me have
the whole seat to myself, and shifted forward to
sit on a picnic cooler across from an off-duty
train operator occupying the “driver’s” seat. The
latter proved to be a valuable source of
information on how the service is operated.

The desired “railfan seat”, albeit facing
rearward, was unoccupied, but a gym bag had
been placed on it. I overheard a passenger

On arrival at Seton, I left my camera bag on the
seat to “reserve” it for the northbound journey
while I took a breather on the platform, and
from that perch I was able to take numerous

The Kaoham Shuttle lays over at Seton Portage on July 27, 2012, awaiting the return
trip to Lillooet, as the train host chats with the driver of the Canada Post pick-up truck.
Page 30 - The Sandhouse

photos along the way, as the light was in my
favour in this direction.
To recap – when waiting to board at Lillooet,
line up beside the train host so you can be the
first to pay and board, and then opt for the prime
seat in the rear car, to get best light for photos
on the return run.
More details on this delightful service and the
unique cars it uses can be found in my article in
the Summer 2012 edition, pages 31-35, titled
“Kaoham Shuttle continues BC Rail passenger
tradition.”
My circle tour resumed after returning to
Lillooet at 13:00. I could have pressed on
immediately for my next destination, Kamloops,
but instead waited to follow northbound CN
freight Train 571 north from town to Pavilion,
where I would shoot it rounding the curve at
Windy Point just before 17:00.

11:00 (the schedule has since been changed).
The ride took place in blazing mid-summer sun,
but the open-sided car with its solid roof was a
shaded oasis.
At the north end of the ride, a treat was in store,
as an empty CP coal train was waiting to go
south from the CN yard, it being one of those
that are handled by CN west of Kamloops. This
required our train to pull clear of the coal train
on to the west leg of the yard’s wye, so the CP
train could proceed south on the tracks we had
just ridden.
While waiting on the wye, an eastbound CN
intermodal freight from Vancouver pulled past

From there it was a leisurely drive to Kamloops
in ample time for a restful evening at my hotel.
Saturday, July 28
At Kamloops, my objective was to ride a short
excursion behind ex-CN M-3-d class 2-8-0 No.
2141, which was observing its centenary that
year, having been built in 1912 for the Canadian
Northern Railway.
Under the auspices of the Kamloops Heritage
Railway Society, the locomotive and its train of
open cars, conventional coaches, and a caboose
make a one-hour round-trip of about three miles
in each direction, over the connecting track
between the former CN station downtown and
the CN yard in north Kamloops. The trip
includes crossing the South Thompson River in
both directions on a 935-ft. long steel bridge.
It being a Saturday, the train would depart at
Here’s the view from the shuttle’s “railfan
seat”, looking north along Seton Lake at about
MP 151 of CN’s Squamish Subdivision.
Spring 2016 - Page 31

us on the mainline and sharp eyes soon spotted
that the second unit in that train was CN 2141, a
second-hand C40-8W unit with the same
number as our own locomotive, albeit exactly 80
years younger.
The steam excursion is operated with the
locomotive leading the outbound train and then
shoving the return movement back to Kamloops
station, with the caboose leading.
My host for the day was PCD member Dave
Davies, who had conspired with his friends at
the KHR to make me the prime target of the
obligatory train robbers who beset these tourist
rides. I performed my role with admirable
forbearance, if I do say so myself, and my
valuables were returned to me in short order.
I was lucky to get that ride in because No. 2141
was taken out of service at the end of that year

and only returned to work late last summer, after
an extensive rebuild costing $250,000.
This year’s main operating season runs from
June 30 through August 27, with Saturday trains
departing at noon. There will also be Thursday
and Friday evening trains, departing at 19:30 in
July and 19:00 in August. Fares are $25 for
adults, $20 for seniors, including a drink and
snack. Visit www.kamrail.org for more
information.
For those intent on turning this evenly-paced
the circle tour into a sprint-car race, it would be
quite possible to ride the Kaoham Shuttle on a
Friday and get to Kamloops in time to ride an
evening train. That would open up the option of
staying over on Friday night and taking
photographs of Saturday’s noontime run or
pressing on toward the next destination of
Summerland and the Kettle Valley Steam

The Kamloops Heritage Railway’s 1912-built Consolidation No. 2141 leads its
excursion train northward over the South Thompson River Bridge on July 28, 2012.
Page 32 - The Sandhouse

Railway.
In my case I stayed on until Sunday morning in
Kamloops, after dinner with Dave and his wife,
Jan, on Saturday evening.
Sunday, July 29
From Kamloops, there are several routes that
will take you to Summerland, one being
Highway 97 through Vernon and Kelowna.
Google Earth times this at 2 hr., 39 min. This
route offers the prospect of following CN’s
Okanagan Subdivision as far as Lumby
Junction. Saturdays see a train running
northbound to Kamloops, with a southbound run
from Kamloops on Sundays, but this is subject
to change.
You could also take the Coquihalla Highway
south to Merritt and then turn east on its
connector route, for a four-lane freeway ride all

the way to the junction with Highway 97. This is
the fastest route, at 2 hr., 12 min.
Or do as I did, at Dave’s suggestion, taking the
route less travelled. This was Highway 5A from
Kamloops to Nicola, skirting the lake of that
name in superb weather. At Nicola, you would
join the Coquihalla for a brief stretch to Merritt,
and then follow the connector and Highway 97
the rest of the way. It takes a bit longer, at 2 hr.,
52 min., but is well worth it for the scenery.
This got me to the Kettle Valley Steam
Railway’s base at Prairie Valley Station, about
four miles west of Summerland, around 12:45.
This was well in time for the departure of the
second – and final -- train of the day, as well as
an opportunity to photograph the run-around
movement of the star attraction – ex-CP N2bclass 2-8-0 No. 3716, long the understudy to
Royal Hudson 2860 on the famed BC Rail

No. 2141 waits at the platform of the former Canadian Northern Railway’s station in
downtown Kamloops, a brick structure that has been superbly restored.
Spring 2016 - Page 33

excursion train.
Like 2141 at Kamloops, 3716 was also
celebrating its centenary that year.
The mid-afternoon temperature was sweltering,
and nearly all of the train’s passengers flocked
to the three open-sided cars behind the
locomotive, leaving two ex-CP 2200-series
coaches almost empty.
On its outbound run eastward, No. 3716 is
operated tender-first. The run of about 5.5 miles
through orchards and vineyards, twisting around
arid hillsides, culminates with the crossing of
the famed Trout Creek Bridge at a snail’s pace.
Before approaching the bridge, though, the
locomotive cuts off from the east end of the train
at Canyon View Road crossing, and runs around
the train to be positioned smokestack-first, a
more appropriate posture for the uphill climb
back to Prairie Valley.
Then it backs the train on to the impressive
bridge until the rear car is at the east end,
allowing all aboard to enjoy the spectacular
views on all sides, about 240 ft. above the creek.
Next, the train pulls forward to a stop at the
Canyon View Road platform, where passengers
can detrain for a breather and photos with the
locomotive.
With the uphill climb on the return trip, the
sound effects are superb, especially in the open
cars, which are mercifully shielded from the sun
with solid steel boxcar roofs. This was the
occasion for another train robbery (fortunately I
was not singled out this time) and much infernal
banjo-playing, which competed with the “stack
talk” I had come to hear.
What is it about steam locomotives that makes
the accompaniment of banjo music compulsory,
not only on these tourist-line trips but also on
TV travelogue shows? Does the thought of a
steam-powered express plying the rails between,

Page 34 - The Sandhouse

say, Toronto and Montreal in the 1940s evoke
the twang of the banjo?
The KVSR operates a more intensive schedule
than the Kamloops Heritage operation. Not only
do trains run from mid-May to early October,
but they operate Thursdays through Mondays
during the peak summer months. (As with the
KHR, there are also autumn and Christmas
special runs.)
During the summer months when this circle tour
is recommended, regular departures are at 10:30
and 13:30, with the ride taking about 90 minutes
for the 11-mile round-trip. Fares are $24.50 for
adults and $22.50 for seniors. For more details,
visit www.kettlevalleyrail.org. (Note that some
trains on certain Sundays include an elaborate
train robbery and barbecue for a fare of $56,
with departures at either 13:30, 16:00 or both).
My ride on the Kettle Valley concluded in midafternoon, and I waited at Prairie Valley to take
photographs of the locomotive being put away.
I would have had ample time to get back to
Vancouver that evening, thus making it a fourday trip, but the setting and summer lighting
were too good to pass up, so I opted to spend the
night in Summerland and enjoy a fine meal at a
good restaurant, and then chase Monday’s trains
for photography.
Having ridden the train already, I had a good
idea of where some of the better photo spots
would be, so I finished Sunday afternoon by
following the line as closely as possible by car
to scout out how to reach those locations.
Monday, July 30

Those preparations paid off well and Monday’s
operation enabled me to chase both of the day’s
trains, with my final shots taken at 14:50. With
that, it was time to head for home, heading north
to Peachland, west to Merritt, and then south via
the Coquihalla. It’s a drive of four hours to

downtown Vancouver, but that’s without a break
for meals or gas.
All in all, this simple itinerary packs in a lot of
railway heritage attractions in just a few days,
including three separate train rides, plus the
opportunity to watch mainline action. Why not
try it this summer?

Built in 1912, the Kettle Valley Steam Railway’s ex-CP N2b-class Consolidation No.
3716 passes the site of the former West Summerland station on July 30, 2012, with a
train returning to Prairie Valley. The locomotive is one year older than the vintage 1913
Kissel roadster seen at left.
Spring 2016 - Page 35

Evergreen Line testing
reaches Coquitlam terminus
Evergreen Line testing has now extended all the
way to the eastern end of the line at Lafarge
Lake-Douglas Station, with the first test train
operating on March 7.
That saw the same Mark 1 set used for testing in
Port Moody – cars 005-006 – wearing a
Styrofoam “collar” to test for clearances.
TransLink has provided two other Mark I sets to
the project for testing and commissioning. One
of them – cars 021-022 – soon followed the
initial test train and is seen in the photo below
on a test run near Lincoln Station on March 15.
At a later stage, TransLink will provide a further

two Mark I sets as the testing becomes more
elaborate.
As of late April, the project office was
describing the overall project as 85% complete.
Work to pour a base slab and then a centre
firewall in the 2-km tunnel was completed in
early May. Now under way is the building of
low concrete parapets beside the guideway to
support the emergency walkways that will run
alongside the firewall.
Drilling for track installation in the tunnel has
started and the first rail strings are expected to

Mark I cars 021-022 are seen on a test run on March 15, looking south with Lincoln
Station beyond. (Photo courtesy of B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure)
Page 36 - The Sandhouse

be pushed into the bore by the end of May,
working from the north end.

ceiling above the stairs and escalators in the
entrance hall.

Work on the stations is near completion, with
the finishing touches in progress. Details such as
signage are already in place.

The signage in place on the station platforms is
in the same style seen at Main Street-Science
World, the only one of the original stations
where an extensive renovation has been
completed.

The state of near-completion is evident at
Moody Centre Station, where the shared station
house for both SkyTrain and West Coast
Express was opened for WCE passengers on
April 11, replacing two temporary walkways
that had been used to access the WCE platform
for more than a year (see WCE news, p. 48).
This gives WCE passengers an opportunity to
glimpse the details in place for the future
SkyTrain operation. Features of the new station
include a public art piece in the form of a native
dugout canoe, carved by Centennial Secondary
School students, that is suspended from the

Lettering is in black sans serif letters on a white
background, with a colour-coded stripe at the
bottom to indicate the line. In this case, the
stripe is in the yellow colour used for the
Millennium Line, with the words “Evergreen
Extension” set against a green background.
A first for the SkyTrain system is the use of
electronic displays in the entrance halls to
indicate the arrival times of the next several
trains in each direction. As soon as they enter

Evergreen Line stations feature electronic displays in the entrance halls indicating the
arrival times of the next several trains in each direction. (Photo by Ian Smith)
Spring 2016 - Page 37

the station, passengers will be able to see when
their train will arrive.

Moody Centre, with completion scheduled for
end of summer.

Just getting started under separate contracts are
small projects to create the station plazas,
including pedestrian walkways, passenger pickup and drop-off spaces, transit connections,
bicycle racks, landscaping, public seating and
public art. At some stations, bus loops and parkand-ride facilities are included in the plaza
projects.

A final contract will soon be awarded for the
remaining plazas at Coquitlam Centre, Lincoln
and Lafarge Lake-Douglas. This work will be
finished in the autumn.

The first contract, for the plaza at Burquitlam
Station, was awarded to Coquitlam-based
contractor Jack Cewe Ltd. The $2.1 million
project is slated for completion in the summer.
Jacob Bros. has been awarded a $1.5 million
contract for the plazas at Inlet Centre and

A platform sign at Moody Centre illustrates the graphic standards for new SkyTrain
signage. The station name is in black against a white background. A yellow stripe at the
bottom indicates that this station is on the Millennium Line, with the words Evergreen
Extension set against a green background. (Photo by Ian Smith)
Page 38 - The Sandhouse

SHORT HAULS
The Events of Today are the History of Tomorrow
The ex-BC Rail mainline hosted a

northbound CN business train in late February.

A further 82 ET44AC locomotives

have been ordered by CN for delivery in 2016,
to be numbered 3039-3120. This will give CN a
fleet of 121 road locomotives compliant with
U.S. Tier 4 emissions regulations.
Nineteen units had been delivered by late
March, making these the first locomotives to be
delivered from General Electric’s new factory in
Fort Worth, Texas.
CN has also ordered eight more ES44AC 4TC
locomotives, which might be numbered 29762983. Like 2951-2975 delivered in 2015, these
will not have an EPA emissions rating and will
not be permitted to operate in the U.S. (Tempo
Jr./Branchline)

CN Train 546, the North Vancouver-

Squamish Turn, has reverted to an overnight
schedule as of May 4.
This follows a period of several months when
the train could be seen running in daylight in
both directions, providing railfans with photo
opportunities along scenic Howe Sound. Now
the train departs North Vancouver in the
evening, rather than the afternoon.
If there is considerable switching work to be
done at Squamish, the train might be seen in
morning daylight on its southbound return trip.
In conjunction with this change, Train 594, the
Squamish yard switcher, was abolished. (Tyler
Welsford/Chris Wasney/Sean Zwagerman)

The four-car train, all in the classic black, green
and yellow livery, was hauled by two modern
CN diesel units in the current black and red
scheme. CN 8947 and CN 2303 hauled power
car Fraser Spirit, business car Great Lakes,
dome car American Spirit and observation/
theatre car Sandford Fleming.
The train deadheaded from North Vancouver to
Mons on February 28 and then departed the next
day with executives and their spouses aboard,
running as far as Exeter. While it was clearly a
pleasure trip for some, some serious work took
place, including a 30-minute stop outside the
Gibbs tunnel at Mile 168.4 north of Lillooet for
an inspection of work to stabilize the rock slope
below the tracks. (Chris Wasney)

D’Arcy siding on the Squamish Subdivision

has been removed, leaving only a short set-out
track at the north end. That was the point where
the manned pusher locomotives would be cut
into southbound trains for the fabled Pemberton
Push operation in BC Rail days, which worked
from D’Arcy to Mons.
Going north, the 6,390-ft. siding was the last one
before the track follows the west shoreline of
Anderson Lake. Its removal leaves Birken, 10
miles to the south, as the last siding before the
lake. The next siding to the north is Seton,
between Anderson and Seton lakes, some 27
miles from Birken. (Chris Wasney)

Lillooet is lobbying the B.C. government

for a return of passenger service on the ex-BC
Rail mainline, saying there is no alternative
Spring 2016 - Page 39

public transportation for those who need to
travel south for social or health-care purposes.

gain of $75 million. The City would keep all
proceeds of sales beyond that.

Several other municipalities along the line,
including North Vancouver District, Williams
Lake and Prince George, have expressed formal
support for Lillooet’s position. (Bridge RiverLillooet News/Williams Lake Tribune)

However, that arrangement could be superseded
by another clause that enables CP to sell the land
between West First and West Fifth avenues
(Mile 0.32 to Mile 0.57), where the tracks are
surrounded by commercial buildings. CP would
keep the first $75 million from sales of that land,
with the City receiving 50% of any amounts
beyond that.
If this were to occur, CP would not be eligible to
share in the revenues from any subsequent sales
of land south of West Fifth.
CP has agreed to remove the tracks within two
years. This comes after its recent efforts to
restore the line for car storage, at a cost of nearly
$1.3 million (see previous issue, pp. 41-42;
Summer 2015 issue, pp. 34-37; and Spring 2015
issue, pp. 33-35).

The long-disputed Arbutus Corridor
issue has been resolved through negotiation
between CP and the City of Vancouver.

In a deal announced March 7, the City will pay
CP $55 million for the 42 acres covered by the
line, stretching from Mile 0.32, adjacent to West
First Avenue and Fir Street, southward to Mile
5.8 at Milton Street. (The land at the north end
of the line, between Mile 0.0 and 0.32, is owned
by the Squamish First nation.)
Although the City intends to retain the corridor
for a “greenway” and possible future rail transit
use, it acknowledged that a future council could
rezone the land and sell it for residential or
commercial development. Accordingly, the deal
includes a cost-sharing formula under which CP
and the City would share the proceeds of the
first $150-million worth of such sales.
CP would receive 75% of the proceeds on the
first $50 million, 50% of the next $50 million
and 25% of the third $50 million, for a potential
Page 40 - The Sandhouse

In the meantime, the City will embark on a twoyear consultation process on the use of the land,
which it is now calling the Arbutus Greenway.
That could include the designation of certain
parcels as “excess land”, which might be offered
for sale.
The first visible change in the line’s status came
on May 14 when City crews removed the rails in
the Burrard Street and Fourth Avenue crossings
and repaved the roads. (Vancouver Sun/
News1130 Radio/Corwin Doeksen)

The Marpole bridge swingspan was

removed by a barge-mounted heavy-lift crane on
March 17, after the west end of the wooden
centre pier had been heavily damaged by a
gravel barge on March 10.
The span was lifted off the pier on to the barge
carrying the crane, and then transferred to
another barge, which was towed upriver to New
Westminster.

Removal came nearly a year after repairs to the
fire-damaged bridge to extricate 22 tank cars
that had been stranded at Univar Inc., following
the fire on July 9, 2014. This severs CP’s
connection to its small amount of remaining
trackage on Lulu Island, which once extended as
far south as Steveston. (Andy Cassidy/Corwin
Doeksen/Editor)

Hunter Harrison.

Efforts to acquire Norfolk Southern

William Ackman has reduced his
shareholdings in CP once again, according to
filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission.
In filings on April 22, Ackman’s hedge fund –
Pershing Square Capital Management – reported
that it had sold 4.1 million shares that day at a
price of $148.25 US, or $608 million altogether.
That leaves it with 9.84 million shares,
amounting to 6.4% of the outstanding stock.

came to an abrupt end on April 11, when
Canadian Pacific issued a terse public statement
announcing the withdrawal of its merger
proposal.
"We have long recognized that consolidation is
necessary for the North American rail industry
to meet the demands of a growing economy, but
with no clear path to a friendly merger at this
time, we will turn all of our focus and energy to
serving our customers and creating long term
value for CP shareholders," said chief executive

CP’s aim to combine with NS had triggered
strong resistance from American politicians,
labour unions, competing railways, key shippers
like UPS and FedEx, the U.S. Department of
Justice, and even the U.S. Army, the latter citing
national security concerns. (CP/Financial Post)

In action seen looking west from the Oak Street Bridge on March 17, a heavy crane has
lifted the Marpole Bridge swingspan off its damaged pier at right, and will next transfer
it on to another barge. (Photo by Corwin Doeksen)
Spring 2016 - Page 41

When Ackman mounted his successful proxy
contest against CP’s incumbent board in 2012,
Pershing Square had accumulated about 24.2
million shares, some 14% of the total, at a cost
of $1.4 billion.

4435, 4449, 4508, 4523; SD40-2: 5708, 5726,
5759, 5775, 5794, 5796, 5824, 5871, 5905,
5914, 5987, 6020, 6025, 6611, 6614;
AC4400CW: 9800-9840. (Canadian Trackside
Guide 2016)

Pershing Square has been divesting its CP shares
since mid-2013, and by autumn of 2014 had
been supplanted as CP’s largest shareholder by
Fidelity Management and Research Co., a major
provider of mutual funds. At that point, Fidelity
owned 8.41% of the company, compared with
8.05% for Pershing Square (see Autumn 2014
issue, pp. 41-42). (SEC/Editor)

The town of Golden threatened action

CP has successfully challenged a

$50,000 fine levied for missing its grain
shipment quota of 536,000 tonnes for the first
week of September 2014.

The railway argued that the week in question
included Labour Day, when the Port of
Vancouver was shut down, making it impossible
to meet the government-imposed quota (see
Winter 2014/15 issue, p. 38).
The Transportation Appeal Tribunal of Canada
agreed with CP and overturned the fine in a
decision issued on March 9.

CN had been fined $100,000 for missing its
quota for the weeks of July 28 and September 7
in 2014, but did not appeal.
The weekly shipping quotas were set by the
former Harper government under the Fair Rail
for Grain Farmers Act that it had introduced in
the face of a record grain harvest. The quotas
have since expired. (Globe & Mail/Branchline)

Coquitlam’s motive power allocation
for maintenance purposes as of mid-February
consisted of 81 units, as follows:

Control-cab ‘daughter’: 1126; GP38AC: 300006, 3008-11; GP38-2: 3023, 3026 (‘mother’ of
1126), 3029, 3046, 3050, 4400-01, 4415, 4423,
Page 42 - The Sandhouse

against CP after the railway denied permission
for river-rafters to cross its mainline to access
the Lower Canyon of the Kicking Horse River,
which draws 15,000 rafters each year and is the
scene of an annual competitive event on the
Victoria Day long weekend.

CP maintains that there is no official crossing at
the point where rafters have crossed the tracks in
the past, and has banned the use of a private
road to reach that spot. The rafters say this is the
only safe place to reach the river, owing to the
steep banks elsewhere in the Lower Canyon.
Golden’s mayor said the town would challenge
CP’s ban by lodging a complaint with the
Canadian Transportation Agency.
However, on April 22, the parties reached an
agreement in principle that would have allowed
rafters to safely cross the rail track with CPdesignated flagging contractors who were paid
for by the rafting companies, which had also
agreed to assume liability at the tracks and
require all of their customers to sign waivers.
But in early May, CP made a proposal that
would transfer all of the risk to the B.C.
government. On May 18, the province said it
was considering taking on some of the risk in
order to save the 2016 rafting season. In return,
it asked CP to enter into a formal mediation
process to work out a long-term solution.
(Vancouver Sun/B.C . Government)

Fourth Avenue crossing in the yard complex in
New Westminster. In effect, the active remnant
of the spur is indistinguishable from the other
yard trackage.
Work to lift the Spur track began early last year
(see Spring 2015 issue, p. 46). At that point, the
western end of track was at Mile 4.89, Nelson
Avenue in Burnaby. (Corwin Doeksen)

SW900 switcher No. 908 has been sold to
A BNSF inspection train ran across the
Southern Railway of B.C. line from Surrey to
Huntingdon on February 25.

The train had come north via Bellingham in the
morning, running north to New Westminster
before taking the SRY line eastward to reach
Huntingdon, where it tied down for the night. It
crossed the border and ran south on the BNSF
Sumas Subdivision the next morning.
Led by a single C44-9W locomotive, BNSF
5120, the train consisted of inspection car
NXGX 390 Michael D. Harding, business car
BNSF 88 Atchison, and measurement/theatre car
BNSF 87 Skagit River. (Editor)

The defunct Central Park Spur track

has been lifted, thereby erasing a long stretch of
the former B.C. Electric Railway interurban
route through Burnaby and New Westminster.

In mid-May, the only work remaining to be done
was removal of scattered ties in the section
between 23rd Street in New Westminster and
Southridge Drive in Burnaby.
The western end of track is now at Mile 0.9, the

equipment broker J&L Consultants of Langley.
Built in 1958, the unit was the final locomotive
to be acquired by B.C. Electric Railway. To
date, it is the only one of 12 SW900 switchers in
the former BCER/BC Hydro rail fleet to have
been retired. (Branchline)

Rail Industry
Both CN and CP exceeded their

“maximum revenue entitlements” for western
grain shipments during the 2014/15 crop year,
according to a ruling by the Canadian
Transportation Agency, which will require the
railways to repay the “excess”.
Ironically, that was a year in which the Harper
government set weekly penalties if the railways
did not ship enough grain each week to meet
minimum quotas set by Ottawa (see item in CP
section). Between them, the railways shipped
41,306,191 tonnes that year, a 7.4% increase
over the 2013/14 crop year.
Since 2000, the Canada Transportation Act has
required the agency to set a maximum revenue
entitlement for each railway and then determine
whether the maximum has been exceeded. This
functions as a form of rate protection for
western farmers that is not afforded to shippers
of other commodities [Ed. note: Could it be that
farmers have more votes than coal miners?].
Spring 2016 - Page 43

The agency ruled that CN’s grain revenue of
$745,068,906 was $6,866,595 above its
entitlement. For CP, its revenue of
$724,045,774 exceeded its entitlement by
$2,137,168.
The railways are required to repay the amounts
above the maximum, plus a 5% penalty, to the
Western Grains Research Foundation, which
funds research that benefits Prairie farmers. For
CN, the penalty is $343,330 and for CP it is
$108,858. Altogether, the railways will be
funding the foundation to the tune of $9.5
million for the 2014/15 year.
In total, the railways have paid $91.6 million to
the foundation since the revenue cap system
began.

However, a review of Canada’s transportation
system by a panel appointed by the Harper
government in 2014 has recommended that the
“maximum revenue entitlement” regime be
phased out within seven years.
In its report, issued in February, the panel states:
“The eventual elimination of the Maximum
Revenue Entitlement will finally place the grain
sector on an equal footing with all other
commodities transported by rail in Canada . . .
an unfettered commercial framework provides
greater assurance that supply chain partners who
handle and transport grain will invest in
innovative supply chain solutions to move grain
efficiently in years to come.” (Canadian
Transportation Agency/Western Grains
Research Foundation/Transport Canada)

Eliminating the Canadian’s subsidies

has been broached by the review panel of Canada’s transportation system commissioned in
2014 by the Harper government, which issued
its report in February.
In its report, the panel recommends that the federal government “increase the use of privatesector approaches for federally-operated passenger rail services including by . . . considering the
elimination of subsidies for the TorontoVancouver service.”
This news was greeted enthusiastically by the
operators of the Rocky Mountaineer tourist
trains, who had recommended exactly that position in a submission to the review panel [Ed.
note: While many submissions to the review
have been posted online, Rocky Mountaineer
chose to keep its full submission private].
The panel apparently agreed, stating in its report
that: “Taxpayers should not subsidize tourism
services that compete with private sector operators in Western Canada. Rocky Mountaineer is
requesting that, at a minimum, subsidies for
VIA’s ‘Canadian’ transcontinental and tourist
service be eliminated.”
VIA statistics quoted in the report noted that
taxpayers had subsidized the Canadian to the
tune of $55 million in 2014, amounting to $591
per passenger, or $50 per 100 passenger-miles
(see table on next page).
The panel recommended retaining the subsidies
for the Halifax-Montreal service and regional
and remote services, but with contributions from
the provinces and communities concerned.
Chaired by former Conservative cabinet minister
(and one-time senior B.C. bureaucrat) David
Emerson, the panel consisted of various appointees from the transport and shipping sectors. Its

Page 44 - The Sandhouse

268-page report covers a wide spectrum of the
Canadian transportation system, including air
and marine transport, as well as freight and passenger rail. The government is not obliged to
implement any of the many dozens of recommendations made in the report.

The Canadian’s finances improved

last year from 2014, according to VIA’s latest
annual report.
Revenues increased to $51.5 million from $47.1
million, while expenses dropped to $98.9 million from $102.6 million. This reduced the required subsidy to $47.3 million from $55.4 million.
At the same time, the number of passengers carried by the Canadian dropped to 89,700 from
93,800, mostly as a result of trains being cancelled between Toronto and Winnipeg over a
period of 39 days in March and April of 2015
following a major CN freight train derailment in
northern Ontario. (VIA)

VIA has postponed until next year a con-

troversial new policy that would have restricted
daytime access to the Park car on the Canadian
during the May through October peak season.
The new policy, announced in March, would
have allowed only Prestige Class passengers to
use the car during the daytime. The tail-end observation car, an icon of the Canadian since its
launch in 1955, provides a bar, lounge and dome
seating to sleeping car passengers.
If the policy had been instituted this year, passengers in Sleeper Plus class would only have
had access to the Park car from 19:00 until last
call at 22:30, and not on the departure evenings
from Vancouver or Toronto, when a champagne
reception is held.
The change drew numerous complaints from
Sleeping Plus passengers, including those who
had booked their trips before the new policy was
announced.
The postponement came in mid-April, with VIA
saying that the change would not be made in the

2014 Subsidies to VIA Rail, by Service
Train Service

Total Subsidy

Subsidy per
passenger

Subsidy per
100 passenger
miles

Core Corridor:
Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal

$93 million

$44

$21

Total Corridor including Core:
Quebec City-Windsor

$172 million

$48

$27

Canadian: Vancouver-Toronto

$55 million

$591

$50

Ocean: Halifax-Montreal

$36 million

$480

$93

Regional/Remote Services

$54 million

$777

$304

Total VIA Rail

$317 million

$83

$39
Spring 2016 - Page 45

2016 peak season.
However, as of April 30 through October 12,
2017, access to the Park car will indeed be limited, but with less restrictive hours than initially
planned. Sleeper Plus passengers will be allowed to use the Park car between 14:00 and
22:30, but not on the departure evenings from
Vancouver and Toronto.

Also, on a year-round basis, a “select number”
of seats in the dome of the Park car will be reserved for Prestige passengers. (VIA/
Trainorders.com)

Vancouver Island
A special train of heritage equipment

made short round-trips between Nanaimo and
Wellington on April 8. The aim was to lobby for
the return of passenger rail service on
Vancouver Island and demonstrate a potential
tourist attraction tied to cruise ship traffic.

The train was formed of vehicles from the West
Coast Railway Association’s revenue fleet, all in
the classic CP Tuscan Red livery, as follows:
FP7A No. 4069, generator car MacDonald
Creek, coach Paul D. Roy, open observation car
Henry Pickering and business car Alberta.
No. 4069 led the first train northward to
Wellington, where SVI’s GP9 No. 110 was
waiting to couple on to the tail-end to lead the
southbound trip. Both locomotives remained
with the consist for the rest of the day, making
four round-trips of 10 miles each. All trips were
sold out, with proceeds to charities.

Ten bilevel cars have been ordered

from the Swiss firm Stadler Rail Group for delivery starting in 2018.
The new cars will augment Rocky Mountaineer’s fleet of 16 bilevel cars for premium-class
Gold Leaf service, which are going through a
refurbishment program in Quebec (see Spring
2015 issue, pp. 49-50).
The existing Gold Leaf cars were built in Colorado by Rader Railcar and its successor, Colorado Railcar, between 1995 and 2007. But that
firm has since gone out of business, and Rocky
Mountaineer has turned to a European supplier
to meet its needs. Stadler says the cars will be
built in Switzerland and Germany. (Railway
Gazette International)

Page 46 - The Sandhouse

This was the first train on the Island to be
powered by an F-unit since the Canadian
Centennial Train of 1967, which was the first
such occasion.
It was operated under the sponsorship of the
Island Corridor Foundation, SVI Rail Link and
Nanaimo Port Authority, and coincided with the
annual convention of the Association of
Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities,
held April 8-9 in Nanaimo. Convention
delegates voted strongly in favour of restoring
the Island’s rail service.
Although no runs took place on April 9, the train
was open for public display that day at Nanaimo
station.
The equipment was shipped to and from the
Island via Seaspan’s rail barge service between
Annacis Island and Nanaimo. (WCRA News/
Island Corridor Foundation)

The Nanaimo Regional District has

withdrawn its commitment of $945,000 toward
repairing the E&N line for passenger and light
freight service.
This was part of a $3.2 million bloc of funds to
be contributed by the five regional governments
along the line to augment the $15 million being
provided equally by the federal and B.C.
governments, with another $2.2 million coming
from the Island Corridor Foundation (ICF) and
$500,000 from Southern Railway of Vancouver
Island.
The district gave 60 days’ notice on March 23
that its contribution would be withdrawn, saying
it no longer had confidence in the ICF after five
years of delays in getting the restoration project
underway, and adding that “alternate uses for

the corridor should be explored.” (ParksvilleQualicum Beach News)

Another blow against the ICF has been

dealt by the Capital Regional District, which in
March requested a formal financial and
governance review of the organization, which is
owned by five regional districts and 11 First
Nations. The CRD claims the foundation’s
management is substandard. (Cowichan Valley
News)

The Snaw-Naw-As lawsuit is holding up
the federal government’s contribution of $7.5
million toward the rehabilitation of the E&N
mainline.

The First Nation is claiming 10.5 acres of
corridor lands around its territory at Nanoose,
north of Nanaimo (see previous issue, page 45).

With the renovated Nanaimo station in the background, CP FP7A 4069 stands poised to
lead a northbound train to Wellington on April 8. (Photo by Robert G. Hunter)
Spring 2016 - Page 47

The Island Corridor Foundation responded to
the suit in February, but the federal government
was given an extension to the end of April to file
its response. In the meantime, the federal grant
is being withheld. (Island Corridor Foundation)

housed four machines since early 2014 (when it
replaced the original WCE station house) has
been dismantled (see photo, p. 42, Winter
2013/14).
For SkyTrain purposes, the station will be
known as Moody Centre. No announcement on
whether WCE will follow suit has been made as
yet.

Annual ridership was up slightly in
2015, reaching 2,649,000.

That’s an increase from the 2,625,000 seen in
2014, which was a low point for the past fiveyear period, but still below the peak of
2,872,000 recorded in 2012. (TransLink)

Port Moody passengers began using the
future SkyTrain station house to access the
WCE platform as of April 11.

This involves WCE passengers crossing over the
SkyTrain guideway by means of an overhead
concourse, reached by stairs, escalators and an
elevator.
Farther to the west of the station house, passengers are crossing over the guideway by means of
a galvanized steel footbridge. Although it is
intended for emergency access between the
WCE platform and the station parking lot, the
bridge is still being used by construction workers on the site and some passengers are taking
advantage of its temporary availability as a
shortcut.
Until the recent change, WCE passengers
crossed the SkyTrain construction site on two
temporary walkways over the guideway. The
one at the east end of the WCE platform made
use of the island platform that will be served by
SkyTrain when the Evergreen Line opens early
next year.
With ticket vending machines installed in the
new station house, the temporary structure that

Page 48 - The Sandhouse

The worst on-time performance in

WCE’s 20-year history was recorded in 2015,
mainly owning to delays caused by CP track
maintenance during the early months of the year
(see Spring 2015 issue, p. 50).
Altogether, 95.6% of trains arrived on time, defined as arriving within five minutes of schedule
plus allowable headway. That compares with the
historical average of 97.7%.
By January this year, performance had recovered to the point that 98.9% of trains arrived on
time, compared with 86.7% in January 2015, the
worst single month ever.
The best annual performance in the past five
years came in 2012, which saw 99.7% of trains
arriving on time. (TransLink)

An eastbound West
Coast Express train
departs Port Moody
on May 12, with the
SkyTrain guideway
at right and the
Moody Centre
station house in the
background, in this
view looking east.

Passengers leaving
an eastbound West
Coast Express train
at Port Moody on
May 12 make a
dash for the exit via
the new station
house.
(Both photos by
Ian Smith)

Spring 2016 - Page 49

identified thus far in testing has been onboard
systems monitoring. (Vancouver Sun/
TransLink/Editor)

The seven new Mark III sets are ex-

pected to go into service this summer, adding 28
cars to the fleet. In tandem with this, more sets
of earlier stock will be formed into six-car trains
to boost peak capacity.
Two sets were observed in the yard of
SkyTrain’s Operations & Maintenance Centre in
Burnaby on May 12. One was the second set,
consisting of cars 405-406-407-408. The other
was unnumbered and the accordion-like gangway connections between its cars had not been
installed.
The first set, consisting of cars 401-402-403404, was delivered last October and has been
used in testing. A report to TransLink’s board
meeting on March 30 noted that the main issue

Faregates were fully closed during the

week of April 4, thus ending 30 years of open
access to SkyTrain stations.
Initial complaints focused on difficulties faced
at certain stations by disabled persons who were
unable to reach the Compass card readers to
open the gates and found no station attendants
available to help them. TransLink said it would
impress on staff the need to monitor all the gates
so that assistance could be given promptly when
needed.
Based on added revenues collected by the end of
April, TransLink was projecting that the system
would see overall SkyTrain revenue up by $6
million to $7 million per year, as estimated
when the faregates were planned. (TransLink)

An unnumbered Mark III set rests in the yard of the Operations & Maintenance Centre
on May 12. The connecting gangways have yet to be installed. (Photo by Ian Smith)
Page 50 - The Sandhouse

2014.

Port News
Vancouver’s port has changed names

again, as of April 6, dropping the relatively recent Port Metro Vancouver branding. Apparently that name, adopted in 2008, caused confusion
with the name of the Metro Vancouver regional
government.
For trading purposes, the new name is Port of
Vancouver. The legal name continues to be
Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, when referencing activities or decisions of the port authority, which was formed on January 1, 2008 by
merging the former Vancouver, Fraser and
North Fraser authorities. (Port of Vancouver)

Container traffic hit a record level for

the Port of Vancouver in 2015, with 3.1 million
TEUs (20-ft. equivalents) shipped through its
four container terminals, a 4.9% gain from 2014.
Grain & agri-product volumes also set a record,
jumping 8% from 2014 to 25.1 million metric
tonnes. Potash exports reached a record 8.7 million metric tonnes, up 15.6% from 2014.
The agri-product increases included volumes of
bulk specialty crops, such as lentils and pulses,
growing by 20% to 3.5 million metric tonnes, as
exports to India and China rose.
Breakbulk metal imports, such as construction
steel and fabricated components, dropped during
the second half, but with overall volumes of 1.4
million metric tonnes this sector still posted its
second highest year on record.
Foreign forest product exports (logs, lumber,
woodchips and woodpulp) amounted to 10.9
million metric tonnes, a slight decrease from

Shipments of coal fell by 8% to 35.1 million
tonnes, owing mainly due to reduced demand
from China for metallurgical coal and lower
thermal coal exports from the United States
routed via Roberts Bank.
The port’s overall volume remained steady at
138 million tonnes of cargo, the record levels in
some sectors offset the decline in others. (Port of
Vancouver)

Preservation
PGE steam locomotive No. 2 has been

cosmetically restored in a three-year project by
volunteers at the West Coast Railway Heritage
Park in Squamish.
The volunteers, mostly retired BC Rail employees, put in 10,800 hours to do the job, which
involved the recasting of many parts. The work
included freeing the seized-up running gear.
Built by Baldwin in 1910 for the Howe Sound,
Pemberton Valley & Northern Railway (which
was absorbed into the Pacific Great Eastern
Railway in 1912), the 2-6-2 tank engine was
sold in 1920 to the Comox Logging & Railway
Co., where it operated as No. 7, with a tender
replacing its oil tank.
The locomotive was donated to the District of
Squamish in 1967 after cosmetic restoration by
the PGE and displayed in a public park for 34
years. The only surviving PGE steam locomotive, No. 2 was donated to the WCRA in 1993,
and for a time was displayed at the museum’s
entrance. (WCRA)

Spring 2016 - Page 51

Index of SANDHOUSE features:
2013-2015 (Issues 149-160)
The following index lists all the feature content in Issues 149 (Spring 2013) to 160 (Winter 2015/16).
Not included are the usual sections at the front and the Short Hauls current news items. In most cases
the listings are the headlines of the articles concerned, sometimes with additional wording for clarity
of reference.
An index of issues 101-124 (March 2001 to Winter 2006/07) appeared in the Spring 2013 issue and an
index of issues 125-148 (Spring 2007 to Winter 2012/13) was published in the Summer 2013 issue.
Issues marked with an asterisk are no longer in print. Copies of all other issues are still available —
please contact the Editor for information on prices and to order.

Spring 2013*

B.C. logging line set the scene for unique fantrips (Hillcrest Lumber railway), pp. 6-15
Railroading in B.C. – a photographer’s view, pp. 16-23
Evergreen Line update: guideway work set to start, pp. 24-26
Cloverdale interurban ready to roll on June 22, pp. 32-33
Summer 2013*
Recalling Dave Wilkie, an extraordinary railfan, pp. 6-18
Cloverdale heritage interurban attracts 3,000-plus riders, pp. 19-23
Evergreen Line work ramps up as first columns completed, pp. 24-28
Autumn 2013*
The Arbutus Line’s last decade captured on film, pp. 6-13
How CP pioneered remote-control operation in Canada, pp. 14-27

Clarifications and corrections to Hillcrest Lumber article in Spring 2013 issue, pp. 28-29
View from the top (roof-top photos of downtown Vancouver railway scenes), pp. 3-32
Evergreen Line work marches ahead, pp. 33-37
Winter 2013/14

Page 52 - The Sandhouse

The travels of KMR No. 4: from the Gold Rush to Tourism, pp. 6-19
New Talgo trains are quite an eyeful, pp. 20-25
Evergreen Line guideway advances, with tunnelling to follow soon, pp. 26-33
Trucks of BCER interurban 1304 set for rebuilding, pp. 34-35
Spring 2014*

Royal Hudson’s magic began 40 years ago, pp. 6-21
Completing the Grand Trunk Pacific: after the Last Spike, pp. 22-26
B.C.’s newest locomotive builder launches little product, pp. 27-28
Evergreen Line tunnel boring starts southward drive, pp. 29-35
Summer 2014
BC Rail take-over: the first decade of CN operation, pp. 4-20
The Royal Hudson’s BC Rail years (Part 2 of article started in Spring 2014 issue), pp. 21-33
The Royal Hudson’s passenger car fleet, pp. 34-36
BNSF coal trains take hilly detour over SRY tracks, pp. 37-39
Evergreen Line gets set to bridge CP mainline, pp. 40-43
Autumn 2014
Two unique [West Coast Railway Association] excursions delighted railfans 50 years ago, pp. 13
Sailing the B.C. coast on the railways’ ships, pp. 14-28
Evergreen Line launching girder shifts to Coquitlam Central, pp. 29-35
SkyTrain disruptions analyzed: 20 changes to be made
Winter 2014/15
When cars rode as baggage on the White Pass & Yukon, pp. 6-14

Round and round the town on BCER’s interurbans, pp. 15-26
Tunnelling stalled, while Evergreen Line guuideway advances, pp. 27-33
BNSF coal detours end as SRY lockout starts, p. 34
Spring 2015*
Spring 2016 - Page 53

Hope Bridge: 100th anniversary of a vital road and rail link (Part 1), pp. 6-17
Amtrak’s Vancouver revival marks 20 years, pp. 18-32
Arbutus Line follies continue with track repairs, pp. 33-35
Evergreen Line elevated guideway all done, but tunnelling hits more snags, pp. 36-40
Summer 2015
Test trains start rolling on Evergreen Line, pp. 6-11
Hope Bridge marks 100th year (Part 2), pp. 12-22
Canfor No. 112 moves to new Island home, pp. 23-31
Special train highlights CNoR Last Spike festivities, pp. 32-33
Arbutus Line saga takes twists and turns, pp. 34-37
Autumn 2015*
Evergreen TBM breaks through, but opening set back to 2017, pp. 6-7
Budd RDC – The Rail Diesel Car in British Columbia: Part One –
The RDC on the Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway, pp. 8-32
WCE reaches 20-year mark with little fanfare, pp. 33-39
Evergreen name downplayed as new route map emerges, pp. 41-42

Winter 2015/16*
B.C. Budd – The Rail Diesel Car on the province’s own railway, pp. 6-36
Evergreen Line starts testing in Port Moody, pp. 37-39

Page 54 - The Sandhouse

Opinions expressed in The Sandhouse are those of the author concerned and are not necessarily those of the
PCD or CRHA. Brief excerpts of articles and news items may be used in other publications, provided The
Sandhouse and author are credited. Photographs may not be reproduced, in any form, without permission.
The Sandhouse is normally published once each quarter, in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, and mailed
to paid-up members. Copies can also be purchased from the following retail outlets:
Central Hobbies, 2825 Grandview Hwy., Vancouver (604) 431-0771
Kelly’s Kaboose, 634 Victoria St., Kamloops
(250) 377-8510
All contributions are gratefully received, but are subject to editing. Please send all news items, photos and
articles to the Editor, care of the Division address (see below).

Ian Smith — Editor

Canadian Railroad Historical Association, Pacific Coast Division
P.O. Box 1006, Station A Vancouver, B.C. V6C 2P1

WE INVITE YOU TO JOIN US
We hope you'll join us. Please send your address details (name, full address, phone number, e-mail),
together with your payment, to our postal address or bring it to one of our regular meetings.
Annual dues (2016) are: $30 for Canadian residents; $30 U.S. for U.S. residents and $40 Overseas
Visit our webpage at http://www.exporail.org/en/crha/divisions/

As of September 2016, Pacific Coast
Division’s regular meetings
will be held on the third Friday of each
month (except July, August and
December) at

Heritage Square, Place Des Arts
1120 Brunette Avenue
Coquitlam, B.C.
Presentations begin at 7:00 p.m.

Spring 2016 - Page 55

We’ll miss you, Doug

Page 56 - The Sandhouse