Western Railroad Discussion > Kelowna Pacific Railway into bankruptcy

On Friday , October 24th, NightHawk Inc,
the owner of the Kelowna Pacific Railway
announced that they had placed their
Okanagan railway into bankruptcy citing
a large drop in revenues due to last
summer's forest fires in the area and
the countervail duties on softwood
lumber imposed by the US.

The Kelowna Pacific Railway is
headquartered in Vernon BC, and
operates on two former CN branchlines,
from Campbell Creek (near Kamloops BC
on the CPR main) to Kelowna, and from
Lumby Junction to Lumby (east from
Vernon).

The KPR uses CN trackage rights from
Kamloops North to Kamloops CPR
junction, and CP trackage rights from
Kamloops East to Campbell Creek.
Similar trackage rights are used from
Armstrong BC to Vernon BC on the
Okanagan Valley Railway, an
Omnitrax property. The OVR uses
trackage rights on the KPR to
Kelowna and Lumby. These traffic
rights arrangement date back to the
days of CP and CN ownership of rail
lines in the Okanagan Valley.

The KPR has 40 employees, many
who originally came from the CN,
and more recently from CP and other
carriers.

Their motive power roster is
interesting, consisting of ex-
CN M420's and a pair of ex-UP
SD40-2's which have been "deturboed"
to make them into SD38-2's.

The KPR operates three freight
services, Vernon-Kelowna,
Vernon-Kamloops North and Vernon-
Lumby on a five day a week schedule.

The KPR plans to continue to
operate for the time being.

Not the best of news. KPR is far and away the BEST alco show left in the west and an interesting operation to boot. Motive power wise, the ex UP's totally blow, but the MLW's are terrific and they put on a great show particularly on the road train to and from Kamloops. Let's hope that things turnaround for the railway soon.

There are some of my shots of KPR at Andy Inserra's Alco site... http://www.tamr.org/Andy_Inserra/kelowna_pacific.htm

Enjoy

Brian A Elchlepp

Growing up in and around Kelowna , I remember the days when CN and CP ran their daily freights to and from Kelowna.....CP mostly used the 3000 series GP38-2's and 5000 series GP35's, while CN ran the 1650-1653 ex NAR SD38-2's and even tried the SD40 and Dash-8's a bit too. With CP first and then CN a few years later selling the lines off to shortlines, CP to Omnitrax and CN to Knighthawk / Trillium, we had Okanagan Valley Railway ( Omnitrax ) and Kelowna Pacific Railway ( Knighthawk / Trilluim ) and they brought in the most colorful and odd combinations of locomotives that I truly foamed over ! ! Either be it the m-420's on the KPR, or the gp9 and gp10's of Omnitrax's factions, I always looked forward to seeing what they had brought up for motive power everytime I was there.


I just wonder, how far behind can OKAN be from KPR ?

Heres to hoping that both companies can turn things around and keep operations going in what I think is one of the best places to railfan shortlines in Canada.

Attached is a photo I took while fanning with a good buddy of mine a few years ago.

Chris78


CN GP38-2's 4700 and 4718 were leased to Kelowna Pacific Railway for a while in 2001. Here they are on the Western edges of Kalamalka Lake, just south of Vernon, B.C., returning from their daily trip to Kelowna with a short freight in tow.

Hey that's pretty close to the Vernon Army Cadet Summer Training Centre, I've spent many a weeks up near there doing various Cadet activities.