Chapter Ten

Celebrating the Heritage

The Canadian Prairies celebrate their railway heritage in many ways. One of the most fitting ways to illustrate how the heritage of those rail lines affected the development of the land is in the many railway museums. Here have been gathered steam engines, stations, railway equipment, and, in a few cases, grain elevators and water towers.

Alberta

Alberta Central Railway Museum

Located a few kilometres southeast of Wetaskawin, Alberta, this growing collection of railway rolling stock is yet another example of the efforts being made all across the prairie provinces to celebrate the railway heritage that made them. The name comes from an actual railway line, the Alberta Central, which operated from 1913 until 1981, from Red Deer to Rocky Mountain House.

The main building is a slightly scaled down version of the Wetaskawin station (which still stands as well), and it depicts how railway operations took place in such a station. Visitors are pulled along a 1.5-kilometre-section of track by the only preserved example of an RS 32 diesel locomotive, which was built by the Montreal Locomotive Works. The heritage coach is a CPR buffet sleeper built in 1926 and named the Mount Avalanche. Not to neglect that other prairie icon, in 2002 the museum added to its collection one of Alberta’s oldest surviving grain elevators, built by the Alberta Grain Company in 1906 in Hobbema.

The recently acquired CPR RDC (Rail Diesel Electric) chrome dayliner (the cab is located in the front of the coach) served on Montreal’s commuter lines from 1956 until 1977, and then as a VIA Rail coach until 1985, when the CPR used it as an instructional car. A little portable station from Hobbema represents the standard portable style of station that was built by the dozens and then shipped out to whatever community needed an instant station. This structure was built in 1902 and removed in the 1920s, when the CPR replaced it with a larger structure.

Alberta Railway Museum

In 1968 the Alberta Pioneer Railway Association was formed in the Cromdale streetcar barns of Edmonton. But the facility was too small, and in 1976 the group moved their historic collection to a rural location north of Edmonton on the former Canadian Northern Railway’s Coronado subdivision. Since that time, the dedicated group has assembled an impressive collection of railway equipment.

The stars of the museum are two “F” series streamline diesel locomotives formerly operated by VIA Rail. In 1999 a rare refrigerator car came to the museum from the Alberta Prairie Railway excursion in Stettler. Another rare find is what is called a “Box Baggage” car, in other words, a box car refitted to function as a baggage and mail car. It is painted in the CN green-and-gold scheme. Also painted in the green and gold is an express baggage and mail car, built in 1937 and handed to the Alberta Railway Museum (ARM) in 1995. Such cars were equipped with catch bars that would grab the mail sack from the catch on the station platform. Inside the mail car, clerks would sort the mail into mail sacks for specific stations and simply toss them out as they passed the station.

A 1939 express baggage car came to the museum in 1994 from the Canadian forces base. It is typical of baggage cars that raced across the country on the famous silk trains. To get the silk from the west coast to New York, these silk trains, which could consist of two dozen such cars, had right of way over all other trains.

The museum has arranged its equipment into train sets, which include a “CNR passenger train,” headed by a pair of 1957 diesel locomotives; a “Northern Alberta Railway work train”; a prairie “mixed train,” headed by a 1913 CNo steam locomotive, number 1392; and a “Northern Alberta Railway passenger train,” headed by a 1927 steam locomotive used originally by the Edmonton, Dunvegan and BC Railway (which later became the NAR).

Among the ARM’s buildings are the St. Albert CNo station, which was built in 1909 northwest of Edmonton. The station serves as the museum’s gift shop and ticket office. A much trickier operation was moving the bulky water tower from Gibbons. A glimpse inside gives the visitor a rare look at how these now-vanished structures provided the vital water to the steam locomotives.

Ardrossan: Katie’s Crossing

Located near the railway trestle at Ardrossan, there is a remarkable collection of railway rolling stock that forms Katie’s Crossing Restaurant and Café. The collection includes two Pullman coaches, two cabooses, and a boxcar that can be used as a stage. Ardrossan is about twenty kilometres southeast of Edmonton.

Aspen Crossing

Located southeast of Calgary, this multi-faceted commercial operation is part garden centre, part campground, and part dining experience — all focusing on the area’s railway heritage. The most visible and striking component is the maroon-coloured business car. Built by the CPR in 1887, it originally carried CPR executives and other business types across the country in luxury. As recently as 1962, photos show John Diefenbaker campaigning from the rear platform of the coach. Following its career as a rail car, it ended up in Edmonton as part of the Sidetrack Café. In 2006 the owners of Aspen Crossing mounted it on a flatbed truck and moved it to the Aspen Crossing grounds. Here, it serves as a restaurant and occasionally hosts dinner theatre as well. A replica station serves as a garden centre, while the actual portable-type station from neighbouring Mossleigh rests nearby. In the campground area, more railway heritage presents itself in the form of a pair of cabooses, which have been converted into accommodations.

Beiseker Railway Museum

Located on a section of the Trans Canada Trail, this recent museum occupies an abandoned portion of the CPR’s Langdon subdivision line. Equipment includes diesels numbered 8017, built by the CPR in 1959; and 8704, built by the CN in 1958; as well as six various boxcars. The site lies two blocks south of Beiseker’s municipal office, which is situated in the former CPR station. The property is owned by Alberta Trailnet, a partner with the Trans Canada Trail.

Calgary’s Heritage Park

The Prairies’ most extensive homage to its railway heritage lies within the heritage park at Calgary. While this is a park designed to depict the many stages of Calgary’s growth, from aboriginal times up to the 1930s, it includes the heritage of the Prairies’ railway era. It does so by recreating a typical prairie railway town with a variety of heritage buildings, including four original CPR stations. The station from Midnapore is a CPR A-2 WLS: two storeys with a dormer on the second storey roof. It was built in 1910 by the CPR in the nearby community of Midnapore and given to the heritage park in 1964 for $1. It now serves as the headquarters for the park’s historical operations.

Aspen Crossing provides fine dining in a converted coach.

The Shepard station, a similar style save for the shape of the dormer, was moved to the park in 1970 and stands at the head of the Boomtown main street. It is here that visitors can board a genuine steam train drawn by a 1944 steam engine, either number 2023 or 2024, and ride in some of Canada’s oldest surviving passenger coaches. Other stations along the park’s track include the CPR’s Laggan station, a small log station that remained in use until 1909, when the current Lake Louise station, also log, was built to serve the growing numbers of tourists flocking to the Chateau Lake Louise. The old Laggan station remained as a storage facility until 1976, when it was moved to the park. The Bowell CPR station built in 1909 is an example of a portable station that would be prefabricated and then transported to whatever community quickly needed a small station building.

The car shop and roundhouse are replicas to depict the scene at a typical divisional point along the railway. A replica of a square water tower was built here as well, to illustrate this forgotten feature of Canada’s rail lines, although the more common style of water tower was the eight-sided variety. The park’s tower was built in 1973 to provide water for the two operating steam engines. The park also has an impressive roster of railway equipment, including the 1905 steam engine 2018, one of five steam engines in the collection, as well as seven coaches, three of which date to the 1880s. Cabooses, tank cars, flat cars, and a mail car are also among the collection, most of which is stored in the car shop.

The Park’s most recent addition is a historic CPR coach, the River Forth. Built as an observation car at Montreal’s Angus shops in 1929, it saw service on the CPR’s popular transcontinental runs. In 1944 it became the Cape Knox and was converted to a sleeper car, and then in 1964 was again changed, this time to a business car. It served out its final days in Winnipeg as a work car and was subsequently stored in Calgary’s Ogden Yards.

Champion Park, Aldersyde

For drivers travelling on Highway 2 between Calgary and Lethbridge, there is a railway “park” that virtually appears out of nowhere, for there are no signs that announce it, nor is it near any rail line past or present. The reason is that the collection of buildings and rolling stock is private. The collection was amassed by the Knowlton family in honour of Ted Knowlton, who worked as a CPR station master for forty-eight years. The focus is on the CPR’s Champion station, which was relocated to the family property. The rolling stock features a CPR camel-back diesel (number 12), a box car, a tank car, two cabooses, and the pride of the fleet, the CPR executive car, Saskatchewan, which was built in 1929 and transported to this location in 1983, where it has been restored. So impressive is this tribute to the heritage of the CPR that the railway’s then-president Norris “Buck” Crump presided at Champion Park’s “last spike” ceremony to honour the 100th anniversary of his railway. Although the collection is clearly visible from the road, access is by invitation only.

Fort Edmonton Park

This park was created in 1969 to depict the evolution of the city of Edmonton, starting with the 1846 fort and continuing to streets that depict 1885, 1905, and 1920. While there are no heritage stations or other historic railway structures, the equipment is genuine enough. Visitors can board a steam train hauled by a 1919 Baldwin steam locomotive, number 17. Built in Philadelphia in 1919, it served a long life hauling logs in Oakdale, Louisiana, until 1969, when it was retired. It was brought to the park in 1977 and now carries tourists in three “Canadian Northern” coaches around the park’s perimeter from its purpose-built station. The Edmonton Radial Railway Society offers rides on its vintage streetcars and maintains its shops here. The shops house nearly twenty tram cars, some of which pre-date the First World War. There is also a 1912 electric locomotive.

McLennan: The Golden Coach Northern Alberta Railway Museum

The rails that struck out northwesterly from Edmonton to reach Peace Country are often given scant attention in the history of Canada’s rail lore, especially when compared to the focus in song, literature, and film on the CPR, Canada’s “National Dream.” If anything, the rails to Peace Country were more a regional dream. Located in McLennan, Alberta, the “golden coach” is a relic from passenger days on the Northern Alberta Railway. In 1914 the town of McLennan became a divisional point for the railway and a substantial station was built, and in later years that building was replaced with a more modern structure. Along with presenting a caboose, the “Golden Coach Museum” recounts the story of the rails to Peace Country, helping to bring to life an otherwise underappreciated chapter in the railway heritage of the prairies. The coach itself was a NAR sleeping car known as the Sexsmith.

Tofield: The Footloose Caboose Lodge

Like Aspen Crossing, the Footloose Caboose Lodge is also a railway-themed private operation. Dining is available in the 1909 CPR observation car, the Mount Lefroy, while guests can sleep in one of two steel railway cabooses, built by the CNR and BC Rail respectively. There are seven cabooses on the property. The operation begin in 1995 when the first caboose arrived. The Mount Lefroy offered cross-country passenger service until 1942, when it was sold to Northern Alberta Railway. It then languished untended until 1991, when it was acquired by the current owners. The site also features the GTP’s Duffield station, one of that line’s rural type stations. It remained in private hands from its closing in 1962 until its move to the present site, where it now serves as the owners’ residence. This interesting heritage operation lies near Tofield, about sixty kilometres southeast of Edmonton.

Wainwright Rail Park

This park is a work of love by the volunteers of the Wainwright Railway Preservation Society and its president Don McGuire. The park opened in 1995 and its collection today includes a pair of CN diesel engines, a VIA Rail generating van, speeders, and the CN sleeper coach the Matapedia, which was built in 1923 and is now painted in the later CN green-and-gold paint scheme. The park’s wooden caboose was converted by the CNR in 1943 from an original Grand Trunk boxcar that had been built in 1912. The most recent addition was a canola tank car from Nipawin. Other equipment on display includes box cars and a flat car, as well as two ploughs and a spreader. One of the ploughs built for single tracks has a double scoop, while that built for double tracks has a single side scoop.

Saskatchewan

Melville Regional Park

Melville is doubly enriched by having not only one of the province’s most impressive heritage stations but also a well-stocked railway museum. The museum display is focused around the GTP station from the village of Duff, and it covers the line’s two hundred country stations found along both the GTP and NTR, from Quebec to the Pacific. The building is one and a half storeys, with a small octagonal dormer above the operator’s bay window. Displayed equipment includes a CNR caboose manufactured in Winnipeg in 1957, a flat car, a 1918 box car, and a vintage steam locomotive. Numbered 5114, this CN Pacific-class steam engine displays a 4-6-2 wheel configuration and was manufactured in the Montreal Locomotive Works in 1918. The display recreates a steam engine and train stopped in front of a typical prairie station. To add further to the authenticity, the equipment itself was all used along the GTP line through Melville.

The Saskatchewan Railway Museum, Saskatoon

This impressive collection of buildings and rolling stock is located on Highway 60 a short distance west of Saskatoon on what was originally the CNo’s Eaton Siding. From 1914–1920, the siding was the site of one of Canada’s infamous internment camps during the war. Most of those detained at the Eaton Siding camp were of Ukrainian origin. After the war, the CNR renamed it the Hawker Siding.

In 1990 the Saskatchewan Railway Museum moved its collection onto the site, which has since grown steadily. It now includes, among the rolling stock, three diesel switch engines, which are traditionally much smaller than the main line engines, as well as a pair of smaller diesels formerly operated by Saskatchewan Power. The 1913 Pullman sleeper known as the Kirkella continued a roll on a work train until 1996. In addition the museum includes four box cars, four cabooses, three flat cars, three streetcars, and a tanker. Buildings include a Canadian Northern bunkhouse from Maymont and a portable station from Brisbin.

One of the more unusual structures, one that ranks as scarcer than stations and water towers, is a switching tower formerly located at Oban between Biggar and Battleford. It was built by the GTP to protect its crossing with the CPR track at that location. Inside the structure, levers controlled the eight sets of semaphores, four of which were located at the immediate crossing, and four about half a kilometre farther out to warn the train engineers in advance. The tower was moved to the museum in 1990.

Western Development Museums, Moose Jaw and North Battleford

In addition to its interior exhibits, the Moose Jaw Western Development Museum (WDM) once again operates a steam driven short line. Admittedly, the line is confined to the grounds of the museum, but it is Saskatchewan’s only steam train operation. The engine is a refurbished Vulcan steam locomotive built in 1914 by the Vulcan Iron Works in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

A railway exhibit inside the vast building includes a mock-up of a prairie station, as well as a CPR steam locomotive, 2634, which was built in 1913, and a CPR combination passenger and baggage coach. The indoor display also includes a CPR wooden caboose and a 1934 Buick track inspection car.

In contrast to the WDM in Moose Jaw, the one in North Battleford is primarily an outdoor display of a prairie town as it may have appeared in the days of rail. Here, a Canadian Northern steam engine, 1158, a ten-wheeler built in Montreal in 1913, heads a “prairie train,” which includes a CN stock car, flat car, box car, and caboose. The rolling stock stands on a track beside what was the St. Albert, Alberta, class-4 CNo train station. Rounding out the railway heritage landscape is a grain elevator that formerly stood in Keatley and was moved to the museum in 1983.

Saskatchewan has, in fact, four different WDM locations, all of which tell their own compelling stories of prairie development. Yorkton’s features the “Story of People,” while Saskatoon’s focuses on a “1910 Boomtown” (and has 1905 steam engine on display).

Manitoba

Fort la Reine Museum, Portage la Prairie

While the Fort la Reine Museum focuses largely on the wide range of early homes on the prairies, it contains one of the more interesting rail cars found anywhere on the prairies, if not the rarest. And that is the actual railcar that William Van Horne used when constructing the Canadian Pacific Railway west of Winnipeg in the early 1880s. Beside it is Car #21, a superintendent’s car. With such cars, the business of operating the railway could take place while actually travelling the line. This is one of only two surviving superintendents’ cars of the twenty-two that were built. The museum is about two kilometres east of the town’s two stations and is within view of the rail lines. It is located at the intersection of Saskatchewan Avenue and the Highway 1 bypass.

Some of the historic railway cars in the Alberta Central Railway Museum near Wetaskiwin, Alberta.

Winnipeg

The Forks

With rail lines converging on the relatively narrow strip of land between Lake Winnipeg and the U.S. border, the forks of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers became a major hub for several rail lines. Among the earliest to arrive at the forks was the Northern Pacific and Manitoba Railway (NP&M), which arrived in 1886 and built its repair shops at the forks in 1889. Engines would enter through large gates and halt atop a pit, from which repairs would be undertaken. Soon after came the Canadian Northern and Grand Trunk Pacific Railways. Although rivals, they collaborated to build Winnipeg’s massive Union Station. But the site of the forks also became the site of major rail yards along with a stable and a cartage building. The buildings and bridges headquarters moved into the NP&M repair shop. The CPR had chosen a route to the north of the forks and was not part of the convergence here.

With the abandonment of the yards by the CNR, demolition seemed a temptation. Instead, a consortium known as the North Forks Portage Partnership has converted the many historic structures into one of Winnipeg’s leading tourist attractions, which is known simply as the Forks. While the CNo and NP&M stables were joined to become the Forks market, the cartage building, known as the Johnson Terminal, is now a market building. But the most historic structure of all, the NP&M repair shop, now houses the Winnipeg Children’s Museum. Sadly, however, an unsympathetic addition has obscured much of the exterior. The Children’s Museum displays a 1910 Pullman combination coach and replica Winnipeg streetcar. On the grounds of the Forks, near the market, are a 1926 CPR parlour car and a 1924 combination passenger coach.

Winnipeg Railway Museum

This magnificent collection of railway rolling stock is situated appropriately in one the most significant and elegant railway buildings in the Prairies: Winnipeg’s Union Station. And here one finds one of Canada’s most significant steam locomotives, the Countess of Dufferin. It was the first steam engine to arrive on the prairies, having been carried by the steamer Selkirk down the Red River from Fisher’s Landing in Minnesota, after which it had been carried by the Saint Paul and Pacific Railroad. Renumbered from CPR 2 to CPR 1, it was named after the wife of Canada’s governor general at the time, Viscount Lord Dufferin. Accompanied by a caboose, tender, and six flat cars, it docked in the early morning of October 8, 1877. It ran for twenty years as a wood-burner before being replaced by the more efficient coal-fired steam locomotives. After struggling on for a few more years hauling lumber, the historic engine was left in pieces in the lumberyard. In 1909 it was rediscovered and donated to the City of Winnipeg, which reconditioned it and put it on display near the CPR station. In 1994 it came to the Winnipeg Railway Museum, where it rests on track number 1.

Also on display is another locomotive first, the CN GMD1, built in 1959 and the first of its series. The museum also displays nearly twenty pieces of railway equipment, including three baggage cars, a boxcar, and a caboose. Beyond a wall, VIA Rail rumbles in and out, carrying passengers on its historic transcontinental Canadian, or on the popular Churchill train.

Other sites in and around Winnipeg also display the community’s steam heritage. Steam engine 2747, the first to be built in the Transcona shops by the CNR, stands on Plessis Road in Transcona. Number 6043, the last steam engine to run on CNR line, finally running out of steam in 1964, stands in Winnipeg’s Assiniboine Park.

Back to the Future: Heritage Rail Excursions

In addition to the remarkable assembly of railway museums throughout the Prairies, there are a few tour trains that venture along historic rails, offering their riders a living glimpse into the Prairies’ rail heritage.

Stettler, Alberta: Prairie Steam Tours

Although Canadian railways ceased using steam locomotives in the 1960s, a large gleaming black steam engine still puffs across the countryside between Stettler and Meeting Creek, Alberta. This is the famous 6060. It was built in Montreal in 1944 to help deal with the increase in passenger and freight traffic during the Second World War. In order to rush it into service, the configuration was made more efficient. A one-piece metal frame, more refined water distribution system, and more efficient heating system meant it was quicker and less costly to build. Following the war, 6060 began its role in transcontinental passenger service. Its wheel arrangement (known as a 4-8-4) made it ideal for travel through the steep and twisting mountain grades. Then, following a brief stint of using it as a tour train in Ontario, in 1980 the CNR donated the steam engine to Alberta to celebrate that province’s 75th anniversary. The steam engine was promptly dubbed “The Spirit of Alberta” by the Rocky Mountain Rail Society. Of the twenty steam engines built by CN in this style, that used at Stettler is the only engine to remain in service. Two others survive but are on static display only.

The tour train began operation in 1990 from a new specially built station in Stettler on the site of the original CNo divisional station (now located in Stettler’s Town and Country Park). In addition to 6060, the train may also be pulled by a smaller sixty-two-foot 1920 Baldwin-class engine, also from the CNR. The third engine is a former CN SW1200 diesel built in 1957. The engines haul a set of coaches, some of which date back to 1919.

These excursions take travellers across country to the original CNo divisional station at Big Valley. Here, the travellers disembark to tour either the museum in the station or the roundhouse ruins. A grain elevator and coach remain on-site as well. En route, the train passes the Fenn Big Valley oil fields and the Fenn general store. Dinner trains, theatre trains, and school excursions are among the more popular itineraries. Excursions last about two hours each way.

Because of the enormous popularity of the APR excursions, especially those under steam, work began in 2011 to extend the line northward to eventually reach Donalda, twenty-five kilometres away. In 2009 the Government of Canada allocated $3.2 million through the Community Adjustment Fund to help with the project. The extension is being spearheaded by the East Central Alberta Heritage Society.

Inkster, Manitoba: The Prairie Dog Central Railway

Operated by the Vintage Locomotive Society of Winnipeg, the Prairie Dog Central Railway (PDC) has been puffing across the Manitoba countryside since 1970. Its original route, which it followed for four years, was along Wilkes Boulevard on the Canadian National Railway’s Cabot subdivision. In 1975 it switched to the Oak Point Subdivision, which it used for the next twenty years. The rail line had been built by the Canadian Northern Railway between 1905 and 1910 and was part of that ambitious little line’s Trans-Canada route, which became the CNR.

Then, typically, the CNR not only advised that it was abandoning that subdivision but was also evicting the organization from the CN’s Transcona facilities, where they had been storing their equipment. Faced with its potential demise, the PDC began fundraising to build new facilities and to relocate its historic station, the federally designated St. James station. The PDC then purchased the Oak Point subdivision and now recreates Manitoba’s railway heritage with no fear of the CNR.

The route takes passengers on vintage coaches pulled alternately by steam and diesel. The route leads northwesterly through Grosse Point, where a small waiting shelter functions as the station. A grain elevator remains at Warren and offers train goers a glimpse of how grain elevators once functioned. And, oh yes, the train might encounter some “train robbers” en route.

The steam engine itself was built in 1882 by the CPR at a cost of $12,500 and is the oldest operating steam engine in Canada. In fact, it was used in the TV adaptation of Pierre Berton’s book, The National Dream, which tells the story of the building of the CPR. The PDC also uses a pair of diesel locomotives, 4138 having been donated by the Grand Trunk Western Railroad and Diesel 1685 by the Burlington Santa Fe Northern in 2010. The five vintage coaches date between 1906 and 1913, all having been built for Great Winnipeg Water District Railway.

The Prairie Dog Central was one of the first of the prairie tour trains to use steam.

CPR 2816, Calgary

Known also as the Empress, steam engine number 2816 was built in Montreal in 1929 and operated on high-speed trains between Winnipeg and Calgary. With its larger fire box and higher steam pressure, it was able to exceed seventy miles per hour. Known also as a Hudson-class steam locomotive, it is the only survivor of the twenty originally built between 1929 and 1930. It served out its final years hauling commuter trains between Montreal and Rigaud before being retired in 1960. After being on static display for a number of years, the CPR reacquired the monster in 1998, restoring it to operating condition, only this time using oil rather than coal. Based in Calgary, it operates along the CPR lines on an irregular schedule as a roving ambassador for the railway.

The Royal Canadian Pacific, CPR Calgary

This magnificent train recalls the days of luxury rail travel. The business cars are housed in the Canadian Pacific Pavilion of Calgary’s Palliser Hotel and were built in a specialized shop in Montreal created in 1902 by CPR president William C. Van Horne. Each, of course, has its own distinctive name. The Strathcona, Van Horne, and Royal Wentworth were built in 1926 and 1927 and feature state rooms, a vestibule, and a dining area. The Banffshire and the N.R. Crump were built as sleepers and offer travellers comfortable accommodations on the rail tours. The 1931 sleeper known as the Craigallechie now serves as a dining car. But the highlight of the fleet is the Mount Stephen, built as the president’s day car, and it features the rear porch from which many a dignitary has proffered a royal wave or two.

Edmonton Radial Railway Society

The Edmonton Radial Railway Society (ERRS) has been instrumental in celebrating a distinctive part of Canada’s rail heritage. A volunteer organization, as so many are, the ERRS began in 1980, determined to restore a streetcar — Edmonton Streetcar #1. From that beginning, the group has worked to restore eight streetcars to operational condition, in addition to three that have been restored but do not operate. In the thirty years after streetcar service began, Edmonton, like so many other short-sighted Canadian cities, pulled their streetcars off the tracks. Most were sold for scrap or to other systems outside of Canada.

The ERRS collection can now boast of four Edmonton units, two from the Toronto area, one from each Saskatoon and Regina, and three from such distant places as Hannover, Germany; Melbourne, Australia; and Osaka, Japan. When in 1995 the CPR ended its rail traffic across Edmonton’s famous High Level bridge, the ERRS set to work re-installing overhead wires.

Finally, in 2011 an original Edmonton streetcar, #33, restored to its 1912 condition, made its debut run, thus restoring a display of original rail heritage to the city of Edmonton.

Southern Prairie Railway, Ogema

After thirty-three years of storing grain, the Ogema Heritage Railway Association lugged the large CPR station, originally built at Simpson, back to its rightful place at the foot of Ogema’s historic main street, where the town’s original and identical station had once stood. The organization then set about to acquire railway equipment with which to operate a tour train. To start, they obtained a GE forty-four-ton diesel engine from the Maine Central Railway. Then it was the vintage CPR baggage express car 4747 — built in 1952 by Canadian Car and foundry in Montreal, it served out its days as service equipment in Moose Jaw. But the most elegant of the rolling stock is the seventy-seat 1920 Pullman coach built for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad. The trains will travel the Red Coat Road and Rail short line between Ogema and Assiniboia.

VIA Rail’s popular cross-country train, the legendary Canadian, pauses at Portage la Prairie, Manitoba

VIA Rail: The Living Legacy

There is no better way to experience the railway heritage of the prairies than to cross them on the last of the scheduled passenger trains, those of VIA Rail. VIA Rail Canada was formed in 1978 to take over the passenger services of the CN and CP. More interested in hauling freight than people, the two companies had been accused of deliberately making passenger travel as inconvenient as possible so that passengers would abandon the trains and allow the railways to justify abandoning the service. But the demand wouldn’t go away, and in a typical Canadian compromise, VIA Rail was formed. But even then, politicians ignored the travelling needs of Canadians, and transportation ministers like Jean Luc Pepin and Benoit Bouchard set about dismantling much of Canada’s rail passenger service. In the case of Pepin, the subsequent government of Brian Mulroney restored most of those cuts, only to inflict more damaging cuts of its own in 1990, when, despite outrage from Canadians, Bouchard eliminated half of VIA’s trains.

Happier times returned when a new Liberal transport minister, David Collenette, announced a VIA renaissance, with new equipment and new stations, but regrettably no restoration of the discontinued runs.

Still, there is no experience as genuine as seeing the prairies from the seat of a train. While VIA’s schedule between Edmonton and Saskatoon occurs during the night, that between Saskatoon and Winnipeg occurs during the daylight in both directions. A midday departure from Winnipeg brings riders to Saskatoon in late evening, while a morning departure from Saskatoon brings the train to Winnipeg around the dinner hour. En route, the train may stop at waiting shelters beside the historic GTP stations at Melville and Rivers.

The best feature of all is that the excursions occur on Canada’s most elegant and historic train, and one of the ten most beautiful trains in the world, the Canadian. The train set was brought into service by the CPR in the mid 1950s to try and revitalize passenger service on their line. Its chrome coaches feature the popular dome cars and the iconic “bullet lounge” at the rear, while sleeping cars provide a comfortable rest for the multi-day trip.

Another of VIA’s more popular multi-day excursions is that which reaches into the subarctic tundra at Churchill, Manitoba. This two-night trip follows the tracks of the legendary Hudson Bay Railway. Many travellers on this train may stay over in the northern ocean port to embark on outings to view the region’s polar bears. Others, however, are residents of the many First Nations communities that line the track and for whom the train is their only means of transport. En route, the train may stop at such historic stations as Portage la Prairie, Roblin, Dauphin, Canora, The Pas, and Gillam before arriving at the large steep-roofed station in Churchill. Travellers may notice the coaches of the Keewatin Railway while passing The Pas. These are run by the region’s First Nations and make twice-weekly trips to Pukatawagan on the Lynn Lake branch line.

Those not travelling on the trains may find that the best location for train watching is in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba. Here, the historic main lines of both the CN and CP run within metres of each other, guarded by their respective heritage stations. Each Saturday, both the Canadian and the Churchill passenger trains pass the station within a few hours of each other, and may even stop, while freight trains rumble past at frequent intervals. Such is the living railway heritage of the Prairie Provinces.