Canadian Railroads > E&N Courtenay again

Crashnational this is for you. Three freight units, the middle one a GP-30 & two Budd cars, a very big day for Courtenay on Dec 27/90.
Bob

I guess it helps if I attach the image.
Bob

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Very nice Bob, thank you! That brings back many memories. I grew up on that railway in the 90`s and into the 00's with RailAmerica.

It's amazing that the VIA dayliners still run. That route was on Conservative Prime Minister Mulroney's hit list of 15 Jan 1990. Fortunately a Supreme Court of British Columbia judge ordered the service to be continued. The federal government appealed that decision to the Supreme Court of Canada and got the favourable decision they were after. By the time judgment was delivered the government had changed to the Liberals, so even though the train could be discontinued it wasn't and 20 years later it's still running.

Great photo. Three units seemed to be the norm for the period from 1990 to the end of 1992. The Courtenay turn would usually be part of the Parksville Turn which ran on Tuesdays and Thursdays. At times this would be a long train out of Wellcox with 20+ cars, almost of them would have been loads which is why there was lots of power on the train. Getting over the Nanoose Bay loops was a challenge at times especially on a wet day. The majority of the train was usually left at the small yard in Parksville for pickup on the way back to Wellcox.

VIA just bought another RDC (Dayliner), which I believe is going to the Sudbury-White River service. It's sad that VIA had a pretty descent fleet of these RDC's (remember them all lined up at one time outside the Halifax station). They really could use these RDC's on some "shorter" routes if VIA ever wanted to try and expand its "network" (even as a substitute for some equipment between Toronto and Niagara Falls) but low and behold, VIA sold them off to as part of the 1990 cutbacks. This was when VIA's Maritime routes were killed off in the 1990s (routes in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick).