I was looking at Canadian Nationals map on their routes in North America. It looked as if the line didn’t go very far east. It used to go as far as Grande Prairie. What is the update on this line?
Doc, I was hoping a BCRail history guy would jump in here before this thread fell off the front page. Dawson Creek and Fort St. John were, for a long time, served by CN’s former Northern Alberta Railway line into Edmonton. But at the time of the sale of BCRail to CN, BC’s Premier, as a condition of sale, wanted those two locations served by a line into the rest of BC. I guess there is just not enough traffic to justify keeping both routes open, but I’m guessing there is still more traffic to/from those two location traveling east of Price George than heading south.
I hadn’t realized they weren’t using the line into Edmonton anymore, either.
Bruce
Greetings AgentKid. I did hear rumours a few years ago that the line between Grande Prairie and the Alberta/B.C. border had been abandoned. Then I saw on a rail map a few days ago that it was blank between the border and Grande Prairie. When I lived and worked up there in the early 90’s Canadian National was sending one train, once a week between Grande Prairie and Dawson Creek. Most, if not all, of the grain shippers weren’t too happy with this as there is or was a number of large terminals around Dawson Creek. I think B.C. Rail wanted to take over the line but success obviously wasn’t achieved.