Canadian Railroads > Where Is the Canadian?

These are pitctures of the Eastbound Canadian (second full day out of Vancouver.  Do you kow were this stop is?  The stop was for only about 30 minutes.

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Mellville. Saskatchewan? And I bet you meant to say 30 seconds.

No, the stop was long enought for me is get off the train and walk around.

Here is a close up of the station.  Doesthat help?

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They must be boarding coach pasengers since the the two coaches are just behind the baggage car and no one seemed to make the hike to the sleeper cars.

Without a little more detail those prairie towns are hard to tell apart.  Unity, Biggar, Watrous and Melville are all on the north side of the tracks, yards are to the south; First Avenue runs parallel and immediately adjacent to the tracks and Main Street intersects it at 90 degrees...and that's usually where the station is.  Having said that, I'm pretty sure the pics are taken at Melville...

Keith Robertson
Langley, BC

It looks like Meleville. The station is being rehabbed by the city there which appears to be the case in this photo.  If the train is on time or early there is time to get off and walk around some there. The only other stop I can recall from many trips that day would be Saskatoon which this obviously isn't and Winnipeg. 

Wow - that's a pretty lengthy consist! I'm surprised there's enoguh HEP juice to power the observation car!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/19/16 03:37 by JPB.

It IS Melville. The e/b Canadian is scheduled for a 10 min stop from 1230 to 1240.

https://goo.gl/maps/5oS2A4Y45MG2

https://goo.gl/maps/vr2q23xUWg32

JPB Wrote:
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> Wow - that's a pretty lengthy consist! I'm
> surprised there's enoguh HEP juice to power the
> observation car!

No problem.!...VIA has been running trains this long and longer for years.

< Wow - that's a pretty lengthy consist! I'm surprised there's enoguh HEP juice to power the observation car!>

VIA's HEP is wired different than Amtrak's. Each engine does about half the train, with a complete set of cables down each side.

http://www.gntrains.com/Documents/ViaHEP.pdf
http://www.nwrail.com/HEP_config.html

Here is another photo of this station stop at Melville, I believe?

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edsaalig Wrote:
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> Melville, I believe?

Yes it is Melville, Saskatchewan

Melville was named for Charles Melville Hays, CEO of the Grand Trunk Pacific, and has been a GTP and later CN division point since completion just before WW1.

The GTP, and its eastern counterpart the National Transcontinental built huge wooden division point stations to a standard plan, most now demolished.

Also, when the towns associated to the railway were built, they were planned with a main street that terminated behind the station, and with another road parallel to the tracks.

Another characteristic of the prairie Grand Trunk Pacific towns and villages was that the grain elevators were set far back from the tracks.

The first time I was through Melville on a CN passenger train, the wisdom of that planning decision was visible. A wooden grain elevator had collapsed toward the tracks, but because it was built away from the tracks, it didn't block rail traffic.

Those prairie towns just seem bare without a "street" of wooden grain elevators lining the track. Melville once had such a row .