Does anyone here know of the history of Great Northern through Keremeos and Hedley in British Columbia? I could stand corrected but didn’t the line come up from Oroville, Washington? South of there I don’t know where this rail line originated. But the line went through Keremeos and I think ended in Hedley, servicing the fruit and coal industries in that area. Thanks for any information provided.
Doc. The Cascade and Columbia short line originates in Wenatchee WA and terminates in Oroville. My Handy Railroad Atlas shows GN continuing into Keremos in 1928. Does anyone know when BN abandoned the line from Oroville to Keremos?
I have a BN ETT from 1984 that shows the 8th Sub, Spokane Division extending from Wenatchee to Keremos. However, a note shows that track between Oroville and Keremos is out of service at that date. So we can reason that the tracks were still in place in 1984, but trains stopped running sometime before then.
Somewhere in my collection, I have a 1978 ETT that may shed further light on this question. However, with a long vacation trip coming up, it will be several weeks before I could go digging for it.
Tom
Great Northern built the line north of the border as part of their third mainline, linking Spokane with Vancouver, BC, through Grand Forks. From Oroville WA to Brookmere BC was completed in 1915. GN gave CPR trackage rights over the line from Brookmere to Princeton, gaining rights on CPR from Brookmere to Hope in return. Brookmere-Princeton was sold to CPR during 1945, after the Princeton-Hedley line was abandoned during 1937. The line from the border to Keremeos was inactive from 1972 until the 1985 abandonment.
An excellent book, with terrific maps, is Railway Mileposts: British Columbia Volume 2, which covers CP and the GN in the southern part of the Province. The author was Roger G Burrows, ISBN 0-9690617-1-4, and may be available through Interlibrary Loans.