Chapter Nine

The Short Lines

Branch Line Abandonment

If in the early years of railway construction across the prairie provinces there were insufficient rail lines, by the 1930s there were simply too many. The CPR was the first to cross the area and showed little interest in adding many branch lines. The main reason for building the line in the first place, after all, was to fulfill a promise to British Columbia: for joining confederation, the government would finance the construction of a railway to the coast. To encourage the CPR, the government offered the company extensive grants of land as well as a twenty-five year monopoly on shipping grain. This resulted in the expected howls of protest from prairie farmers, and the government approved two more national lines, namely the piecemeal network of Mackenzie and Mann’s Canadian Northern Railway and the government-financed Grand Trunk Pacific Railway.

While the CNo happily extended branch lines almost everywhere, the GTP focused more on reaching the coast and added few branch lines of its own. When the First World War ended, and with it the financial future of the CNo and GTP, the Canadian National Railway was created to take over the bankrupt lines. With access to public funds, the new CNR had little restraint when it came to branch line construction, and to compete, the CPR followed suit. And so, from nine thousand kilometres of tracks in 1906, more than three times that amount was in place by 1935: twenty-six thousand kilometres

But the times conspired against so many branch lines. One factor was the Crow’s Nest Pass freight rates, by which the railways were required to reduce the shipping rates they charged the farmers. As a result, by the mid-30s, the railway companies were losing money. Truck companies offered better rates and more flexibility. This meant that the railways could no longer afford to subsidize the lightly used branch lines from the profits of their main lines.

Until 1975 the government had helped to subsidize these money-losing routes, but the Hall Commission recommended closing the costliest of the lines, and finally, in 1995, most restrictions on branch line abandonments were lifted. In just five years, more than two thousand kilometres of branch lines were gone, along with most of the grain elevators that lined them. Elevator villages turned into ghost towns by the dozens.

Responding to the plight and hardships that befell the smaller farmers as a result of those abandonments, some of the branch lines have sprung back to life. In 1989 the Government of Saskatchewan enacted legislation that allowed the chartering and financial assisting of locally operated short lines on the branches being proposed for abandonment by the major railway companies.The St. Louis Ghost Train

Some abandoned rail lines, it seems, don’t want to stay abandoned. Such would be the case of the “Ghost Train” of St. Louis, Saskatchewan. St. Louis is a small one-time railway village perched on the North Saskatchewan River. Although its rails have been lifted since 1983, many residents and visitors claim that hasn’t stopped the trains.

The strange story of a ghost train has been told many times. The site where it occurs is a former railway crossing along a side road around eight kilometres north of the town. Those who have witnessed the phenomenon claim that, far down the track, they see a single headlight, similar to those of old steam locomotives. It seems to keep getting closer but then vanishes. Often a smaller red light is seen with it.

The legend has it that a conductor was decapitated while checking the tracks and that the red light is the lantern the conductor was using to find his missing head. A pair of high school students, as part of a school project, launched an investigation of the light’s cause. Drawing a straight line down the track from their position at the crossing on a topographical map, they asked one of their fathers to position his car at various locations along the projection and flash his headlights while the trio communicated by cell phone. Finally, one the locations showed that indeed the phantom light could be nothing more than approaching car headlights enhanced by ground-level refraction.

Most believers, however, dismiss that theory, and still attribute the lights to something that cannot be so easily explained. In fact, a local café calls itself the Phantom Light Café. A visit to the crossing in 2011 revealed that the old railway right of way had become so overgrown that distant headlights would not easily penetrate the growth.

The Short Line Revival

Just when it seemed as if the branch lines were doomed in Canada, various provincial governments have made it easier for short lines to operate on those branch lines. Some are farmers’ co-ops, others may be subsidiaries of larger rail lines.

The Burlington Northern Santa Fe

This very short line operates only within the city of Winnipeg, yet its roots go back to 1903. It began as the Midland Railway of Manitoba, but ended up merging with the large American railway the Burlington Northern. Today, it is based in the city of Winnipeg, where its two-stall engine house sits north of Taylor Street, housing its solitary locomotive and a caboose. The line hauls processed corn, steel, and construction materials to its links with the CN at their Fort Rouge yards or the CPR at their Logan Street yards.

Keewatin Railway Company (KRC)

When the Hudson Bay Railway in 2003 announced its closure of the Sherridan Rail line, which had served the Leaf Lake mine, the three First Nation communities that would be most severely affected signed a joint memorandum of understanding: Tataskweyak Cree Nation, Mathias Colomb Cree Nation, and War Lake First Nation bought up the line in 2004. Headquartered in The Pas, the KRC operates mixed trains twice weekly between The Pas and Pukatawagan, a distance of some 250 kilometres. This is the only short line in the Prairies to carry both passengers and freight.

Boundary Trail Railway

In 2009, producers along a twenty-five kilometre CP branch line formed the Boundary Trail Railway Company to ship produce from along the line and save the many small communities from severe economic decline. It is the first such short line in Manitoba, although similar lines had been operating in Saskatchewan for a number of years. Its thirty-six-kilometre route extends from Binney Siding to almost Manitou, and the company owns a further eighty kilometres from Binney Siding to almost Killarney. In its first year alone, the Boundary Trail Railway shipped five hundred carloads of grain.

The Central Manitoba Railway (CMR)

This short line operation runs on two former branch lines: one from Beach Junction in Winnipeg to Pine Falls, about ninety-five kilometres; and the other from Carmen to Graysville, a distance of eighty kilometres. The CMR acquired the two subdivisions from the CNR in 1999, and today its four locomotives and sixty cars haul primarily farm products, but also paper products, chemical products, and oil. The line connects with CP and CN in Transcona.

The Saskatchewan Initiative

More than any other province, Saskatchewan has encouraged short lines. In 1989 the government enacted legislation approving the granting of loans to locally initiated efforts to acquire branch lines the CN and CP were proposing for abandonment. An earlier example might be considered the Southern Railway Corporation — a farmer-driven short line between Moose Jaw and Rockglen in southern Saskatchewan that hauled primarily grain. By 2010 nearly a dozen similar short lines were rumbling across the prairie landscape.

One of the first short lines under the new legislation was the Carlton Trail Railway. Based in Prince Albert, it took over operations for 140 kilometres of track between Saskatoon and Prince Albert from the CNR. Its facilities are in Prince Albert, where it owns one of the only two operating roundhouses in Canada. The line is operated by Omnitrax, a short line operator based in Denver.

Thunder Rail began its operations in 2005, between Arborfield and Carrot River on the CN line. At only 19.5 kilometres, it was considered too short to interest such short line operators as Omnitrax, leaving operations to Thunder Rail’s staff of three. Six local individuals are qualified to operate the single locomotive.

Headquartered in Leader, Saskatchewan, the Great Sand Hills Railway controls 187 kilometres of track between Birstall, Alberta, and Swift Current, Saskatchewan. The company was chartered in 2008 and just a year later was running one-hundred-car trains.

The Torch River Railway between Choiceland and Nippawin met some initial resistance from the CPR, but once the proponents had a high profile private sector partner involved, the rail company agreed to sell the line. Soon, The Torch River Railway would be running five hundred cars a year.

Another of the major short line rail operators is the Great Western Railway (no relation to the long-defunct rail company of the same name that was based in Ontario and amalgamated with the Grand Trunk Railway in 1882).

A number of the short lines are operated by the Great Western Railway, which has forty sidings. Among the lines it operates are the Red Coat Road and Rail and the Fife Lake Railway. All together, it operates on 438 kilometres of what would otherwise have been ghost rail lines. It is headquartered in Shaunavon, Saskatchewan, and links with the CPR at Assiniboia and Swift Current. The Red Coat Road and Rail company runs between Pangman and Assiniboia, and it will be the first of the short lines to host a tour train operation.

Based in Ogema, the Southern Prairie Railway, with its ex-CPR coach and diesel engine, plans to run trains from its newly relocated CPR station.

The Rail Trails

Few of the Prairies’ many abandoned rail lines have become rail trails, as has happened in Ontario and Quebec. The Rossburn Subdivision Trail in western Manitoba, and the Iron Horse Trail in Alberta, however, now form two of the longer such trails. Shorter rail trails may be found in Red Deer, Alberta; Naicam, Saskatchewan; and in Hamiota and Grosse Isle in Manitoba.

The Rossburn Subdivision Trail, Russell to Neepawa

This 170-kilometre-trail ventures from Neepawa in the east to Russell in the west. The trail is generally suitable for hikers, equestrians, and skiers, while also attracting its share of ATVs. It starts with some history at the Beautiful Plains Museum, situated in the 1902 Canadian Northern Railway divisional station in Neepawa, for it was here that the railway located its main line yards and offices for the next 160 kilometres of railway operation. From a point north of the station called Rossburn Junction, the CNo extended a branch line west, reaching Rossburn in 1905 and Russell in 1908.

The trail offers a cross-section of Manitoba’s railway and natural heritage. In its eastern stretches, it crosses wide prairie landscapes, while the central portion follows small river valleys and the scenic shores of lakes such as Sandy Lake and Lake Beaufort, where cormorants and great blue herons abound. It passes through active and vibrant towns such as Sandy Lake and Russell, and others that have nearly died away, like Menzie, Silverton, and Vista. Birdtail is described as being a ghost town. Small wooden trestles lie en route near Vista and Elphinstone, while others have attracted the usual arsonists.

Several communities through which the trail passes have retained their grain elevators. In fact, the western trailhead at Russell lies by the town’s lone grain elevator. Other grain elevators survive at Angusville, Oakburn, and Silverton. Scenic vistas occur at the intersection with the Desjarlais Trail, known as the Windy Viewpoint, while another awaits between Angusville and Rossburn.

Sandy Lake, about the halfway point, is a busy tourist town, where the CNo’s class-3 station now serves as the office for a nearby campground. The former station grounds here serve as a trail head for trail users. A one-time station, now nearly hidden by a hedge at the north end of the hamlet of Vista, is in fact the CNo class-3 station from Rossburn. Rossburn, which itself served as the divisional point for this subdivision, offers historical interpretative plaques on the grounds where the station once stood. An elevator survives here as well.

The Iron Horse Trail, Waskatenau, Alberta, to Heinsburg and Cold Lake

This hiking, skiing, and ATV trail follows the former CNR line between Waskatenau in the west and the ghost town of Heinsburg in the east, with a branch to Cold Lake. The rail line was part of a failed effort by the Canadian Northern Railway to access the settlements between Edmonton and North Battleford north of the North Saskatchewan River. Even after the CNR took over construction, the link was never completed. Eventually, the section east of Waskatenau was abandoned and has given the Prairies’ one of its longest rail trails.

That portion from Waskatenau to Abilene Junction stretches for ninety-two kilometres and begins at a 1919 wooden trestle at the east end of the community. This high wooden trestle was originally twice today’s length, but the ends were filled with earth.

The official trail head, however, lies in Smoky Lake by a well-preserved CNo class-3 rural-style station (as well as giant pumpkins). The trail leads east to Bellis, beyond which it crosses a trestle that is more than two hundred metres long. The next “station stop” of Vilna offers a main street that has been restored to resemble its more prosperous period and contains Alberta’s oldest pool room, now a designated provincial heritage structure. Built in 1921 by Steve Pawluk, it operated as both a pool room and barber shop until 1996, after which it was acquired by a local heritage group.

Rossburn, Manitoba, offers information plaques on the Rossburn Rail Trail.

Farther to the east, Saint Paul was established as a divisional point with the standard CNo class-3 station, lengthened to accommodate the needed facilities. Sadly, the grain elevators and the CNo station that stood through the 1980s are gone now, leaving little more than a barren field.

From Abilene Junction, the trail splits, with the northeast path leading ninety kilometres to Cold Lake. On this portion, before entering the picturesque lakeside town of Bonnyville, the trail features a winter warming hut modelled after a railway station and a one-time watering site for the steam locomotives. Another major trestle five hundred metres long crosses the Beaver River, and the trail finishes this leg in Cold Lake. The southeast branch leads to Elk Point and finally Heinsburg.

Odd names abound along the rail lines in the prairies, and Owlseye’s origins remain obscure. Yet it was at one time a thriving railway town with stores, a station, and grain elevators. While only a few dwellings now mark the site, the yard of one such dwelling contains the village’s portable style station.

The community of Elk Point has replicated their 1927 CN-style two-storey station beside the rail trail and uses it as an eco-information centre as well as for tourist information. The rail trail ends up in the ghost town of Heinsburg, where the water tower and station are preserved, and where the main street offers a row of weathered abandoned stores.

Naicam Rail Trail

This relatively short walking trail, just two kilometres long, follows the former CP line from the town of Naicam and heads from 3rd Street north into the open spaces around the town. The town has also retained its station, now a restaurant, as well as a pair of elevators.

Edmonton

Edmonton enjoys a system of riverside trails. One of them, the Mill Creek ravine trail, follows the road bed of the Edmonton, Yukon and Pacific Railway (EY&P), a line whose sole purpose was to bridge the South Saskatchewan River and connect Edmonton with the CPR’s then head of steel in Strathcona. A historic wooden trestle erected by the EY&P forms part of the trail.

Hamiota

The Pitlochery and Chumah trails both follow abandoned portions of the Canadian Pacific Railway, which built its tracks through Hamiota. While the Pitlochery leads hikers into a marshland habitat, the Chumah trail, which is also groomed for cross country skiing, takes the visitor into a more prairie-like grassland setting.

The Prime Meridian Trail

This Manitoba rail trail follows the abandoned CN Inwood subdivision from Grosse Isle to Argyle, a distance of ten kilometres. It takes hikers, cyclists, and cross country skiers through grassland and farm fields. The Grosse Isle starting point coincides with a popular stop on the Prairie Dog Central Railway steam and diesel railway excursions.