Canadian Railroads > MLW Monday-#23 On The Move

After our crew change at Lillooet, posted last week, #23 is on the move, rounding the curve at Gibbs.Ya gotta love those wide cabs leading and running elephant style! July 1980. Richard Yaremko

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Very nice shot.
JB

Note the TOFC (trailers on flat cars) on this train. The PGE and later BC Rail had intermodal terminals at many stations, plus their own trucks and trailers.  When PGE was designed to open up northern BC, trucks allowed them to extend service far beyond the rails.

Those trailers carried groceries for the "Overwaitea" supermarkets (then and now part of the Jimmy Pattison retail empire), and also beer. For a time Labatts brewery had their own branded trailers, but they were soon changed to unmarked trailers after a series of beer thefts.

Prior to the trailers, BCR used refridgerator boxcars in grocery service, including some unique conversions from ice reefers which had a cutaway at the end of the car for a "Carrier" type diesel compressor. (never took a photo)

The BC Rail intermodal service was abruptly discontinued shortly before the railway was sold to CN.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/15 10:01 by eminence_grise.

Also the TOFC was quite lucrative beyond Quesnel as the truckers running north from Vancouver would have to take rest at Quesnel or Prince George before heading further north. This downtime cut deeply in the profit margin for the truckers.  Also the BC Rail intermodal would quite often get a "back haul" in the empty trailers returning south. The pulp mills and plywood plants would load the trailers for the south trip. #23 symbol VP was a hot train for BC Rail.  Most of the south bound TOFC went south from Prince George on #38 symbol OV, departing Pr Geo early to late evening.   Doug

I worked at "Safeway' grocery stores as a driver for 38 years and we too used to send our own trailers on B. C. Rail. They would be delivered to North Vancouver and go up on the train (#23 at one time) that night. The next day we would leave the distribution center in Burnaby with an over the road load for 100 mile and Williams Lake. After unloading at 100 mile we would go to the store in Williams Lake and drop our trailer there. We would hook onto the empty (store returns) and go down to B.C.R. where we drop the empty and grab the load that had arrived earlier. We might have to go back to the store in Williams Lake to drop some more freight off, then proceed to Quesnel and repeat the drop and go down to B.C.R. for the next trailer. This one we took to Prince George and if it was really busy we might have to get a third trailer off the train there. This usually involved waiting for the ramp crew to get the trailers off the cars. It was a good deal for the company an one driver could do up to four loads. They also got the store returns sent back for free as the returnig trailers were considered empties (no charge). Ironically I started driving for P.G.E. in Feb of 1971. One of the places that we picked up at was Safeway. In June 1973 I left British Columbia Railway and started driving at Safeway. Good memories from both jobs. Dick Green aka Greengrocer 

Great shot of 23.
As for trailers, the Safeways were a regular feature on #23, along with the BCR trailers as well as those from Overwatea and Labatts.
Some of those were delivered as far north as Dawson Creek.

Brian E