Canadian Railroads > MLW's on the BCR

More from our trip to British Columbia.
Exeter Sept 11, 1977
Same train and date at Williams Lake.
Not sure of this location, nice new roadbed, however.
Sept 12, 1977
Todd Montgomery
Eugene OR

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neat series of photographs! I dig the train order boards on the "newish" depot.
--Anyone know anything about that weldwood boxcar in the first photo? I've never seen that before.

The abandoned trestle is near "Australian" Mile 352.4, I knew the trestle was gone, but I didn't realise they moved the main line away from it.

Back in the days of the Cariboo Gold Rush in the 1850-60's, there was a stage coach inn called "Australian House" nearby.
A miner from Western Australia sought his fortune at Barkerville, and ended up owning the stage coach stop. His descendants still live in the area. No trace of the inn anymore.

The trestle (and fill) cross Australian Creek. When the line was originally built it followed a higher line but when the trestle began to have problems they abandoned it and built a lower line--probably about 1975.

Both wooden trestles at Australian and just south of Alexandria were replaced years ago with culvert and earth fill. Each trestle became a maintenance headache for the railway and had a ten mph permanent slow order on both. Before replacing the one south of Alexandria it not only had a 10 mph speed restriction but also "no dynamic brake" while on the bridge, bit of a challenge on a south bound train. Still today at Australian, there is a storage track that is actually the old main line, and wooden pilings for the trestles can still be seen at Australian and Alexandria and both fills can be seen from the highway.
Doug

I recall a drive back from PG for the occasion of a University friend's wedding (Spring 1984). I stopped in at the Alexandria location and found a massive construction effort going on with the BCR still operating over the wooden trestle and excavators filling in the diversion. That would tell of the approximate time for the commissioning of the Alexandria diversion.

Rick



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/10 05:49 by rschonfelder.