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VANCOUVER ISLAND UPDATE - Various Sources
Click on the photos for larger images
All photos by Don Evans
It would appear that rail service has come to an end on Vancouver Island although for now the VIA Malahat Dayliner service
continues. At the heart of the closure of Rail America's Esquimalt & Nanaimo operation is the loss of pulp business to Port
Alberni for Norske Canada. Norske now owns all three mills'Powell River (which is now closed), Crofton and Port Alberni.
With the closure of Powell River, Norske decided to source pulp for Port Alberni from Crofton. Crofton asked the E & N to
rebuild the 2.5 mile Osborn Bay spur into Crofton, but the railway decided it was not economically viable to do so. So,
Crofton will ship by truck to Port Alberni'25,000 trucks annually will replace 8,000 freight carloads by rail. This decision left
the E & N with only 800 to 1,000 carloads a year, not enough for the railway to survive and thus, the decision to close. (T.M.)
Over the Christmas holidays, your editor was on Vancouver Island and observed a few things. Heading for the west coast
through Port Alberni on December 27, the Port Alberni yard had two strings of boxcars and the mill switcher evident. On the
way back through on December 31, the yard was completely empty. The only rail equipment anywhere was the Port Alberni
heritage group's three train cars parked at the station. Continuing on to Parksville, we caught the southbound VIA Malahat
with a very good passenger load in RDC-1's 6135 / 6130.
New Year's day we ventured to Nanaimo and discovered that the
Malahat was not running that day at all. Good news, though, was that the station had been repaired from the fire and sported
a significant section of now roof. At Wellcox yard, everything was quiet for the day, but the yard was full of freight cars and
the Rail America motive power was there'even one GP38 receiving a prime mover transplant.
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