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Freight service to resume on portion of Kelowna Pacific Railway
Just drove up from Kelowna, north to Sicamous. At Armstrong, the track seperates. One line goes north-east to Kamloops (the line mentioned), and the other line goes to Sicamous. This line was owned by Canadian Pacific, and is now out of service. Been OOS for 2 years now. It was CP’s line into the Okanogan, and in the early 1970,s I used to stand on the old foot bridge over the river in Sicamous and watch the then new SD-40 fleet pull trains over the railway bridge the foot bridge was attached to. That was a thrill. One hot sunny day in July, 7 old Gp,s came along to pull a string of old 40’ boxcars off the siding, probably to the scrapper, when they started getting cylindrical hoppers. Those were the days. There’s a 2-8-0 that was running excursions down the CN line to Armstrong, turn left onto the CP line to Sicamous, and return via CP main to Kamloops. At least that’s what I understood. It would be great to see a short line operator start both those line’s up again. Campbell Creek is where the Armstrong Branch starts, east of Kamloops. Just a little history for everybody!
Nice post. At least CN is resuming some service. Railroading is all about profit and if it doesn’t pay to run trains, they don’t. The good ole days are unfortunately over and only what pays, stays!