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AAR reporting marks

as BCR: BCOL, BCIT
as PGE: PGE, PGER

The British Columbia Railway (also known as BC Rail or BCR) was a railway that operated in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Formerly owned by the government of British Columbia, It was sold to Canadian National Railway in 2004. Prior to its sale, the railway was the third largest in Canada, operating 2,319 kilometres (1,441 miles) of mainline track.

Chartered in 1912 as the Pacific Great Eastern Railway (PGE), the railway was acquired by the provincial government in 1918 after running into financial difficulties. A railway that ran from "nowhere to nowhere" for much of its existence, neither passing through any city nor interchanging with any other railway, it expanded significantly between 1949 and 1983. The railway's operations have not always been profitable, and its debts have made it the centre of political controversy on multiple occasions.

History

1912-1948

The Pacific Great Eastern Railway was incorporated in 1912 to build a line between Vancouver and a connection with the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway at Prince George. Although independent from the GTP, the PGE had agreed that the GTP, whose western terminus was at the remote northern port of Prince Rupert, could use their line to gain access to Vancouver. The railway was given its name due to a loose association with England's Great Eastern Railway. Its financial backers were Timothy Foley, Patrick Welch and John Stewart. The British Columbia government gave the railway a guarantee of principal and 4% interest (later increased to 4.5% to make the bonds saleable) on the construction bonds of the railway.

The railway soon started to run out of money, however. In 1915 it failed to make an interest payment on its bonds, obliging the provincial government to make good on its bond guarantee. In the 1916 provincial election, the Liberal Party alleged that some of the money advanced to the railway for bond guarantee payments had instead gone into Conservative Party campaign funds. In the election, the Conservatives, who had won every seat in the legislature in 1912 election, lost to the Liberals. The Liberals then took Foley, Welch, and Stewart to court to recover $5 million of allegedly unaccounted funds. In early 1918, the railway's backers agreed to pay the government $1.1 million and turn the railway over to the government.

When the government took over the railway, it consisted of two separate sections: A small section between North Vancouver and Horseshoe Bay, and one between Squamish and Clinton. By 1921, the provincial government extended the railway to a point 25 kilometres (15 miles) north of Quesnel, still 35 kilometres (20 miles) south of Prince George, but was not extended further. The track north of Quesnel was later removed. Construction of the line between Horseshoe Bay and Squamish was given a low priority because there was already a barge in operation between Squamish and Vancouver, and the railway wanted to discontinue operations on the North Vancouver-Horseshoe Bay line. However, the railway had an agreement with the city of Vancouver to provide passenger service that it was unable to get out of until 1928, when they paid the city $140,000 in support of its road-building programme. The last trains on the line ran on November 29, 1928 and the line fell into disuse (but was never formally abandoned).

For the next twenty years the railway would run from "nowhere to nowhere". It did not connect with any other railway, and there were no large urban centres on its route. It existing primarily to connect logging and mining operations in the British Columbia interior with the coastal town of Squamish, where resources could then be transported by sea.

1949-1971

Starting in 1949, the Pacific Great Eastern began to expand. Track was north of Quesnel to a junction with the Canadian National Railways at Prince George. That line opened on November 1, 1952. Between 1953 and 1956 the railway constructed a line between Squamish and North Vancouver, which opened on August 27, 1956. By 1958 the railway had reached north from Prince George to Fort St. John and Dawson Creek.

In 1958, British Columbia Premier W. A. C. Bennett boasted that he would extend the railway to the Yukon and Alaska, and further extension of the railway was undertaken in the 1960s. A 37 kilometre spur was constructed to Mackenzie. A third line was extended west from the mainline (somewhat north of Prince George) to Fort St. James. It was completed on August 1, 1968. The largest construction undertaken in the 1960s was to extend the mainline from Fort St. John 400 kilometres north to Fort Nelson, just 150 kilometres away from the Yukon. The Fort Nelson Subdivision was opened by Premier Bennett on September 10, 1971. Unfortunately, the opening of the line was overshadowed by the inaugural train derailing south of Williams Lake, south of Prince George.

1972-1989

In 1972, the railway's name was changed to the British Columbia Railway. In 1984 the railway started calling itself BC Rail.

In 1973, the British Columbia government acquired and restored an ex-Canadian Pacific Railway 4-6-4 steam locomotive of the type known as "Royal Hudsons", which were given that name by King George VI after one led the royal train westward on a transcontinental journey in 1939. The locomotive that the government acquired, numbered 2860, was built in 1940 and was the first one built as a Royal Hudson. The government then leased it to the British Columbia Railway, which started excursions with the locomotive between North Vancouver and Squamish on June 20 1974. The excursion service ran between June and September on Wednesdays through Sundays.

In the 1960s, a 662 kilometre long line was projected. It would run northwest from Fort St. James to Dease Lake. On October 15, 1973, the first 200 kilometres of the extension to Lovell were opened. The cost of the line was significantly greater than what was estimated, however. Contractors working on the remainder of the line alleged that the railway had misled them regarding the amount of work required so that it could obtain low bids, and took the railway to court. Construction stopped in April 1977. At that point, the Dease Lake extension reached 223 kilometres past Lovell and had cost $168 million, well over twice the initial estimate. A Royal Commission was called to investigate the railway. It recommended that construction not continue on the 239 kilometres of roadbed between Dease Lake and the current end of track. It further recommended that trains be terminated at Driftwood, 33 kilometres past Lovell. The rest of the track would be left in place but not used. However, in later years, the line were extended somewhat, so that it now reaches to a place called Chipmunk, still 170 kilometres south of Dease Lake.

The Tumbler Ridge Subdivision, a 132 kilometre (82 mile) electrified branch line, opened in 1983 to the Quintette and Wolverine mines, two coal mines northeast of Prince George that produced coal for Japan. It has the lowest crossing of the Rocky Mountains by a railway, at 3815 feet. There are two large tunnels under the mountains: The Table Tunnel, 5.6 miles long, and the Wolverine Tunnel, 3.7 miles long. Electrified due to the long tunnels, it was one of the few electrified freight lines in North America. Although initially profitable, the traffic on the line was never as high as initially predicted, and by the 1990s was under one train per day. The railway had incurred much debt building the branch line, and the expensive, unprofitable operations on the branch line could not help to repay that debt.

1990-2003

In the early 1990s, the provincial government reduced subsidies to BC Rail. As a result, the railway, burdened with several money-losing services that it was required to operate, saw its debtload grow more than sixfold between 1991 and 2001.

In the 1990s, the railway branched out into shipping operations, acquiring terminal operator Vancouver Wharves in 1993 and Canadian Stevedoring and its subsidiary, Casco Terminals, in 1998. In 1999 these operations became the three operating divisions of a new entity, BCR Marine. BCR Group became the parent company of both BCR Marine and BC Rail. In early 2003, attempting to reduce the railway's large debt, BCR Group sold its BC Marine assets except for Vancouver Wharves (which was also not included in the subsequent sale of BC Rail to Canadian National, and remains a provincial Crown corporation).

On August 19 2000, the Quintette mine closed, and the portion of the Tumbler Ridge Subdivision between Teck and Quintette, British Columbia was abandoned. The last electric locomotives ran along the line on September 29, 2000, after which the line was worked by diesels. The Wolverine mine closed on April 10, 2003, after which the remaining 69.6 kilometres (43 miles) of the Tumbler Ridge Subdivision between Teck and Wakely was abandoned, although the track is still in place.

Several other services were discontinued around this time as well. The Royal Hudson steam train excursion was discontinued at the end of the 2001 excursion season. The 2860 was out of service in 2000, needing extensive repairs. The backup steam locomotive, a 2-8-0 locomotive built in 1912, broke down in May 2001, and for the rest of the season BC Rail used a former Canadian Pacific FP7A diesel locomotive that it had leased. Passenger train service ended October 31, 2002. The service was not profitable, and the railway's Rail Diesel Cars that it used were ageing and were becoming increasingly expensive to keep in service. Service between Seton Portage and Lillooet was replaced by a railbus. As well, around this time the railway also ended its intermodal service.

The sale of BC Rail

Looking to retire BC Rail's debt, on May 13, 2003, British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell announced that the government would privatise BC Rail, while retaining ownership of the right-of-way. On November 25, 2003 it was announced that Canadian National's bid of $1 billion would be accepted over those of several other companies. The transaction was closed on July 15, 2004. Many opponents, including Canadian Pacific Railway, accused the government and CN of rigging the bidding process, though this has been denied by the government. It has also recenly surfaced that Dave Basi and other upper-echelon aides were possibly bribed by OmniTRAX in exchange for skewing the process in that company's favor, albeit unsuccessfully.

Sources

. ISBN 0920620272. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |Author= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Title= ignored (|title= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Year= ignored (|year= suggested) (help) . ISBN 0525481745. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |Author= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Title= ignored (|title= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Year= ignored (|year= suggested) (help)

• Schmidt, Paul (May, 2003). British Columbia seeks new BC Rail operator, retains right-of-way. Trains, p.11.

External links

• The BC Rail Story from CN's website, including photos
• West Coast Railway Association, focused on preserving "British Columbia's Railway heritage"
• November 2003 Announcement of the selection of CN, from the B.C. government website
• Billion-dollar B.C. Rail deal, a November 2003 article from a CBC website

• Transportation in British Columbia
• Defunct railway companies of Canada