Feature Article
WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE SPEEDERS?
by Margaret Hope (Co Meet Coordinator, Motorcar Operators West)

 

Thanks to Don Evans, I am now a member of the West Coast Railway Association and like most of you reading this, I have a passion for railways. I indulge my passion each summer with travel by speeder on a variety of railways. We don’t ever operate our speeders individually. We travel in groups with railway escort. If you’d like to see us operating our speeders this summer, here are a few places in where our paths might cross yours:

  1. On June 29th we’ll operate south from Vernon on the Kelowna Pacific Railway (former CNR). We’ll turn the cars at Lumby, again at Lumby junction. At lunch you’ll find us stopped beside the road between Kalamalka and Wood Lakes. We’ll turn the cars on the Wye in downtown Kelowna and then return to KPR in Vernon by late afternoon.
  2. On June 30th we’ll operate north from Vernon on the Okanagan Valley Railway (former CPR) to Sicamous. Our stops will be in Enderby on the way north with a turn at Sicamous and at the end of the afternoon in Armstrong where the local Rotary Club is planning a dinner for us. This run is special since it is 110 years since the railway first carried passengers. Service was provided by a steam powered speeder called a Kalamazoo.
  3. On July 1st, we’ll operate on KPR again, this time heading to Campbell Creek Junction, just south of Kamloops. Our stops will be in Falkland, at Ducks Meadow, at Campbell Creek where we’ll turn the cars near noon, with lunch at Monte Lake, another stop at Falkland to tour their museum and set-off in Armstrong.

Next we’re off to Alberta for a northbound departure on the Mackenzie Northern Railway on July 4th. We depart Slave Lake for Peace River on the 4th, High Level on the 5th, and on to Hay River NWT on the 6th. Participants then rest for two days before reversing the trip on the 9th – 11th. Our stops along the way will be anywhere they have a good assortment of mosquitoes and black flies.

Later in the summer a group with narrow gauge speeders will operate on the White Pass and Yukon railway between August 1st and 5th.

On August 20th another group of us will set-on at Swan Landing and follow the CN rails through Grand Prairie to Dawson Creek where we’ll switch to BC Rail’s tracks with stops at Chetwynd, Tumbler Ridge and Prince George. There we transfer back to CN for a run to Tete Jaune Cache. Earlier in the month you might find another group running the CN system from Prince George to Prince Rupert. I was on the maiden run of this route last summer and am still in a state of awe.

If you are curious about the hobby you can learn more by visiting the North American Rail Car Operators Association at www.narcoa.org or, show up at one of our stops to learn more about the hobby first hand. If you do drop by, be sure to wear a high visibility vest and ankle high leather boots. Most Canadian railways maintain a high safety standard; as hobbyists, we intend to meet their standards for safe operation.

Margaret Hope
Co-Meet Coordinator
Motorcar Operators West

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