Nostalgia & History > Northern Alberta dreams

Just a display caboose, but for me a lament for something I wish I could have done "back in the day". I had always thought the Northern Alberta Railway to be something, well, exotic if you will. A far away rail line in the far north that held the same appeal to me, and maybe more, as let's say the Ontario Northland or the Algoma Central. But it was far away from my home in Ohio, too far for a young man with scarce resources and little time off from work. I would make treks to the ACR and ONR as the years moved on but the NAR would always be just beyond my reach. Come 1981 the CN would buy out the CPR's part ownership and merge the NAR into the massive CN system. The NAR was gone without me ever laying eyes on it. Fast forward to last month, I now have the time and resources, so I'm driving back the Alcan Highway from Alaska. "Milepost 0" on that road is right next to the former NAR tracks in Dawson Creek, BC. With some daylight remaining I keep driving east, taking Rt 43 into Alberta. I eventually start to follow an unused portion of the old NAR and in Hythe I spot this caboose on display at a campground across from those rails. All those unfulfilled dreams of going north came flooding back to me. Silly isn't it, it's just an old caboose to most folks, but finding this brought a smile to my face. So I guess in a low key kind of way, I had finally made it to the NAR.

Roger Durfee
Akron, OH

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Did you shoot the other caboose at that campground, now converted to a public toilet?

-Trevor
 

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There is a nice restored unit at Westlock too, its parked in the Arena parking lot right beside the CN ex-NAR crossing. 

tsokolan Wrote:
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> Did you shoot the other caboose at that
> campground, now converted to a public toilet?
>
> -Trevor
Trevor, I did not...but how the mighty have fallen when regulated to latrine duty, ugh

Roger Durfee
Akron, OH

Thanks for sharing. Are these cars steel sheathed or covered with plywood?

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com

Some are still, others are plywood. Remarkably a good portion of the NAR caboose fleet has been preserved, many of which in towns along the former ROW.

-Trevor

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