Canadian Railroads > Alberta Prairie Railroad

Am working on a little video of the Railroad I shot back in 1999.
What I am looking for is some history of the railroad in Stettler, and on the Alberta Prairie.
No reply from the RR, and can't find anything via Google, so thought this might be the way to go.

We rode the train from Stettler to Big Valley, and also shot the 6060 to Coronation, and a few minutes
of that will also be in it(Pacing footage only). That line as I understand it is ex CPR and is not gone!

Any info or links to the history of this tourist line would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Greg Scholl

I can't provide specific info but the precursor of
the Alberta Prairie was Tom Payne's Central Western
Railway which was the foundation for RaiLink then
acquired by Rail America. When my family and I did
the trip to Big Valley in the early '90s, Tom was
still the Hogger on the old Consolidation he bought.
One heck of a guy!

Rainer

My wife and I rode the Alberta Prairie Railway (APXX) from Stettler to Big Valley and back in June of 2009. I’m and avid railfan but I’m also a bit of a history nut and I like to know as much as I can about the places I go to watch trains. For that reason I did some research before the trip and paid attention to the info that was available at both Stettler and Big Valley.

The north south line that APXX runs on is ex-CN and was incorporated in early 1909 as the Alberta Midland Railway which was in fact owned by the Canadian Northern (the station at Big Valley is a restored Canadian Northern structure). Before the end of 1909 the railway was essentially incorporated into the Canadian Northern although it appears that the Alberta Midland name continued to be used. The original line ran from Vegreville through Camrose to Calgary with a branch line from Camrose north to Strathcona in south Edmonton. In 1929 the northern end of the branch line was abandoned from Bretona to Strathcona and a line constructed from Bretona to Bretville junction just west of Clover Bar.

The line from Camrose to Vegreville was abandoned many years ago. The section from Camrose to Bretville Junction is now part of CN’s Camrose Sub (which extends south to Mirror where it joins the CN Three Hills Sub which runs to Sarcee Yard in Calgary,

The Alberta Midland track from Ferlow Junction (just south of Camrose) south to Dinosaur where it connected with the Drumheller Sub became the CN Stettler Sub which was active as CN track age till sometime in the latter part of the 80s. In 1986 the Central Western Railway began acquiring both CN and CP track in the area.

Alberta Prairie Railway began running on AMR track (I can’t determine exactly when) sometime in the early 90s. By the mid 90s AMR was shedding track and in 1998 the Stettler/Big Valley section was sold to APXX. In January of 2006 what remained of AMR was acquired by CN.

I know that this is a bit (?) confusing but when it comes to understanding the history of a myriad of interlinked rail lines (such as exists in Alberta and Saskatchewan) piecing together all the parts of the puzzle can be very interesting. There’s a lot more to this story than what I’ve outlined here but I hope this gives you a bit of an insight…

B4CPRail Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I can't provide specific info but the precursor
> of
> the Alberta Prairie was Tom Payne's Central
> Western
> Railway which was the foundation for RaiLink then
> acquired by Rail America. When my family and I
> did
> the trip to Big Valley in the early '90s, Tom was
> still the Hogger on the old Consolidation he
> bought.
> One heck of a guy!
>
> Rainer

Tom Payne is not held in very high regard in the state of Washington! In fact, there are people who would like to have a face to face conversation with him, and would appreciate it if he would bring lots of cash........lots and lots of cash, no checks please!

Butch

My comments were in the context of the '80s and '90s
when he pioneered shortlines in Canada. He was a man
with a vision and loved what he did. Unfortunately,
his wealth when he left RaiLink created some dubious
enterprises. I believe he moved to the U.S. after CN
and Canadian reglators refused rights for Ferroqueus
to operate steam powered grain trains, using ex Reading
2100, to Prince Rupert.

Rainer

truxtrax Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Tom Payne is not held in very high regard in the
> state of Washington! In fact, there are people who
> would like to have a face to face conversation
> with him, and would appreciate it if he would
> bring lots of cash........lots and lots of cash,
> no checks please!
>
> Butch