Canadian Railroads > Another one for MLW Monday

BCR freight train #23 was the only northbound freight that BC Rail ran on a timetable schedule. It's purpose was to forward hot traffic (or what passed for that on BCR) to Prince George. Called at 23:00 in North Vancouver the schedule put the train into Prince George (400 some miles and 3 subdivisions away) about 18 hours later.
This was the pattern on the railway for years, stretching all the way back to the PGE days. In the summer, if the train was out of "North Van" by 00:30 or so (and it usually was), it would be hitting the town of Lillooet around daybreak. This made #23 (AKA the "VO") a favorite among the fans of BCR because of it's predictability and because if you got lucky, you could catch the train in some nice morning light on the 2.2% climb out of Lillooet.

Set your alarm for 05:30, then get up and head over to the station to ask the Operator how far out 23 was. Great stuff.

May 30, 1988... late in the Big alco era on BC Rail, we find M630's 721 and 705 on the point of #23. The usual piggyback's (including the obligatory Safeway and Labatt's trailers) are farther back in the consist today, tucked in behind the locotrol remotes thirty cars back. The empties on the head end don't fool us though, it's 23 alright...note the absence of flags or white markers on the lead engine.

It was great show.

Brian E
(I've posted this one before)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/20/14 12:24 by m420.

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Great stuff. If only the CN hadn't got its hands on BC Rail................

KG

Don't get me started.....

Nice image and description. One correction, #23 was symbol "VP", "Vancouver - Peace". Other symbol trains were VC & VO, Vancouver-Cariboo and Vancouver-Omnicea. The VC and VO freights ran as extras although they did have a schedule of sorts and fairly predictable time wise. Doug



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/20/14 12:50 by hoggerdoug.

Awesome stuff once again Brian!

-Trevor

:O...............

hoggerdoug Wrote:
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> Nice image and description. One correction, #23
> was symbol "VP", "Vancouver - Peace". Other symbol
> trains were VC & VO, Vancouver-Cariboo and
> Vancouver-Omnicea. The VC and VO freights ran as
> extras although they did have a schedule of sorts
> and fairly predictable time wise. Doug


And of course you are right about the symbol, Doug. OOPS!

The VO was Extra North that you could usually expect to show up in Lillooet around mid day.

Thanks.
B

Thanks, great info to go along with the photos.

Bob Jordan