Canadian Railroads > Run-N-Shoot in Surrey BC

I'm at YVR almost at the end of a two week trip to the Canadian Territories and finishing up the Mainline run on the Alaska Marine Highway System. Today I woke up late with no plan, rode a trip with my friend who drives for TransLink south so I could ride on one of the last Orion V buses in service anywhere. After riding from Richmond to Surrey another passenger told me of an exchange (transit centre) where I would likely see more Orion Vs. This was a good thing as I was looking at the map I heard a train horn. We had crossed the Southern Railway of British Columbia on the route 301 with the Orion less than ten minutes before. I ran. and I mean ran, faster than I have in years since I actually got to test this railway, which was BC Hydro and British Columbia Electric Railway before that. Looking at the timestamps on the pictures I ran almost 400 yards in two minutes to get these shots. Safety First, I didn't run across to the sunny side for obvious reasons. 
1,2) Southern Railway of British Columbia approaching 72nd Ave in Surrey. Pictures taken Thursday September 22 2022 at 15:51 (3:51 pm).
3) Unique cantilever for the flashers at 72nd Street.

Thank you for looking!

Jim

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Well done - Three first-class photos.
Bob

Anybody know the heritage of the locomotives? Are they BC Hydro with blue paint?
t4p.

SRY 382 is ex. BC Hydro same number.  SRY 385 was formerly MRL 703, originally built as ACL 1014.

TCnR Wrote:
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> Anybody know the heritage of the locomotives? Are
> they BC Hydro with blue paint?
> t4p.

Rob Smith
Hamilton, ON

Excellent series!  We don't see many SRY photos.
ALLEN

TCnR Wrote:
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> Anybody know the heritage of the locomotives? Are
> they BC Hydro with blue paint?

Another poster has answered the question about the locomotives' origins, but a blue livery was adopted by BC Hydro Rail at the start of 1986. For the first 14 years of BCHR (starting 1962), the units had retained the B.C. Electric Railway yellow. No. 382 shown here would have been yellow when built in 1972 and repainted in blue in 1986.

When BCHR was privatized in October 1988, the new owner (Itel Corp.) retained the blue livery and simply replaced the BC Hydro Rail lettering with Southern British Columbia in the same format (the full official name is Southern Railway of British Columbia).

The Washington Group bought the operation from Itel in 1994 and applied the Montana Rail Link livery seen in these photos, along with the Rail Link lettering. At a casual glance, the dark blue seems very similar, but I don't know if the paint specs are the same.  Southern Railway of British Columbia is still the official name, but the owner promotes the SRY Rail Link identity. https://www.sryraillink.com/



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/24/22 01:23 by railsmith.

You did well catching this train in nice light!