I realize that it’s been about 12 years since Canadian National ran through Weyburn and Estevan. Did Canadian National ever run down to the border there or has just been Canadian Pacific domain at North Portal - Portal?
CN ran to the US border at Northgate, Sk. and connected with the BN. When the CN and BNSF were going to merge there were big plans for this line from Saskatoon to Northgate. Northgate is just east of Portal about 10 - 15 miles. There has not been any traffic on this line for a number of years but it was pretty busy at one time. It is now up for abandonment.
The CN does run a unit coal train to Beinfait, near Estevan. It is for Ontario Hydro and runs from Beinfait - Maryfield -Brandon- Winnipeg and I believe on to Thunder Bay, Ontario.
Barry, Regina, Sk.
Doc: where are you at? I take it from your posts, that you’re somewhere in Canada?
I think he mentioned in a past post that he was up in Fort Nelson?
I live in Nelson, B.C. in the West Kootenays, quite a way from Fort Nelson 300 miles up the Alaska Highway.
Far enough north that there is no railroad?[:O]
Oops, I stand corrected!
Where I live, Canadian Pacific has one frieght a day that operates out of Cranbrook. It serves Creston, Nelson, Castlegar and Trail.
Up in Fort Nelson, it’s the end of the line of the former B.C. Rail line. They went up there 3 times a week from Fort St. John.
I’ll have to look that up in an atlas. Sounds like you’re in the mountains, so the traffic might be timber. I work for a lumberyard. Maybe your area is sending wood my way.[:)]
My wife has a brother who lives up in Kelowna- one of these days we’ve got to wander up that way and visit him.
Nelson is in the Selkirk mountain range. The only loads that go out of here is lumber that is now shipped in by truck from the old Kaslo - Slocan run.
Am I reading that correctly? The lumber ships into Nelson by truck, then out of Nelson by train?
You got it. The Kaslo - Slocan run was abandoned about 1993. Since then any lumber from that area has been shipped to Nelson by truck to a transload facility located next to the rail yards.
See also “The Skyline Limited: The Kaslo and Slocan Railway - an Illustrated History of Narrow Gauge Railroading and Sternwheelers in the Kootenays” by Robert D. Turner and David S. Wilkie, Sono Nis Press, 1994 - 296 pages:
“This is the dramatic story of the Kaslo & Slocan Railway-the Great Northern’s narrow gauge-in the rugged Slocan Mountains of BC’s West Kootenay district during the 1890s and early 1900s. Here too is the superbly illustrated account of the beautiful sternwheelers that connected the K&S with other Great Northern branch lines. The Skyline Limited is a fascinating chapter in the stories of the Great Northern and the Canadian Pacific.”
From: http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Skyline_Limited.html?id=OB9_AAAACAAJ
- Paul North.