Canadian Railroads > A few from Prince Rupert, BC last week…

One week ago on Victoria Day, my wife and I disembarked our cruise ship, Carnival Miracle, in Prince Rupert, British Columbia - for the last port day of our 10-day cruise from San Francisco to SE Alaska.  We visited the Kwinitsa Railway Museum, which happened to be very close by and open despite the holiday.  A very friendly docent was pleased to discuss rail history and point out the displays.  Here's a few photos.

1) The Kwinitsa depot, relocated in 1985 from its original location by barge.

2-3) A couple views inside.

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4) The plaque outside

5) After the Kwinitsa museum, we went to the Museum of Northern British Columbia, which was a treat of historic and cultural exhibits.  Here's a nice display about the Grand Trunk Pacific, which later became part of CN.

6) The rest of our 6 hours in port included a first visit to a Tim Hortons, the Sunken Gardens Park, and the Wheelhouse Brewing Company.  Upon our departure at 4pm, we got a good look at Kwinitsa depot from our starboard-side balcony of the Miracle.  Also I believe the red brick building to the left of it is the previous VIA station for Prince Rupert (originally CN?) - now under refurbishment.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/29/23 16:53 by PasadenaSub.

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7-9) As we left Prince Rupert, I could see long strings of doublestack cars along the CN mainline to the west/south of town.  It wasn't until I saw the locomotives at the end of the strings that I wished we had a Port-side cabin instead.  However, I borrowed my wife's iPhone 14-Pro camera to get the best zoom I could from the ship.  I'm not sure if these were DP units on the rear of westbound trains, or the sole power for departing eastbounds.  The final shot features the pilot boat that followed us for over an hour - to later pick up their man who was piloting our ship through the channel between Kaien and Digby Islands.

All pictures from 5/22/23.

Thanks for looking,

Rich



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/29/23 17:18 by PasadenaSub.

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PasadenaSub Wrote:
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> 6) 
>Upon our departure at 4pm, we got a good look at
> Kwinitsa depot from our starboard-side balcony of
> the Miracle.  Also I believe the red brick
> building to the left of it is the previous VIA
> station for Prince Rupert (originally CN?) - now
> under refurbishment.

Yes, CN, built 1921-22   https://www.historicplaces.ca/en/rep-reg/place-lieu.aspx?id=6759&pid=0

worked as operator  at kwinitsa from october 1964 until march 1965 it was an interesting job  in the fall and winter with much snow and many slides as the rail line and highway paralell  the mountains  for almost 30 miles so   it was lively   for train crews and opr and  sectionmen. today nothing but  a long siding but  the line sure  has  ahell off alot more traffic than in the past. we had two loggers and  one  thru frt plus the psgr

There are some interesting 'tours' of Prince Rupert on YouTube. For example there's one of a retired guy coming back to check out the town and the Paper Mill with the old crew, the paper mill been gone for 10 years or so. Another is a series of a training ride from PG to PR including Terrace and Kitamat, can't imagine any of the indistry is still there but some great scenery.

Thank you for the pictures of a place rarely featured on this site. The shots of the doublestacks with the cranes in the background are nice symbols of Asia-North America trade. 

Terrific series of photos Rich.  Nice history on the Grand Trunk Pacific.

Gary