E&N Railway

[CN2972South]

welwyn said:

Maybe they need more freight loco's and a nightliner as well as the dayliner.

The two units they have now can handle all the freight traffic. Once traffic improves, then you can get some more locomotives. Buying locomotives now would waste money that the E&N doesn't have.

[Quinsam]

What about running the bud's at night as well as in the day

[CN2972South]

The unions won't allow it.

[Quinsam]

unions?

[CN2972South]

Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers(Locomotive Engineers) and the United Transportation Union(Conductors).

[Ferryman]

A bit off topic on that but...the E&N buddcars had a bit of an accident today. They crashed into a Dumptruck at Chemainus and flipped the dump truck over. The train looked like it was fine when they showed it on the news. But its only been just months since the last crash in Ladysmith at the Transfer Beach road and tearing most of the front end off. There seems to be quite the accidents with that train every year.

[Quinsam]

yeah, maybe the cause is like; you are waiting at the intersection in downtown Ladysmith on the crossing for the traffic lights to change, and then you hear the load ding-dong-dinging of the railroad crossing signals, then the train comes along and runs the vehicle over, cause it is trapped in the gates.

[CN2972South]

Just like the accident last summer; the idiot truck driver tried to beat the train. He saw the lights flashing, heard the horn, and instead of stopping he floored it and tried to beat the train. He deserves to have his liscense taken away.

Harry, there are no gated crossings in Ladysmith or Chemainus. It is also against the law to stop on a railway crossing.

[Ferryman]

There's one gated crossing in Ladysmith at the Davis/Chemainus Rd crossing, but there has never been a problem there. If I was between those gates for whatever reason in a car, I would plough the gates over and worry about that later instead of just sitting stopped on the tracks wondering what to do next and have the train hit me. But that's probably common sense with everyone.
Now there is a huge derailment just north of my house on the CN line (ex BC Rail) right now, and a chemical car fell in the river and is leaking and killing all of the fish. Sirens have been going off for a while but have finally calmed down.

[Quinsam]

Are they thinking of reopening the alberni line? They could get another company on the E&N for Freight service between Langford and Courtenay, and the Victoria Roundhouse, If they want more loco's on the E&N, they are going to need to Knock Down the old Roundhouse, and build a new one, bigger.

[CN2972South]

The Port Alberni Subdivision will be reopened if they get a freight customer in Port Alberni. About buying new locomotives like I said earlier, don't waste money on new locomotives if there is not enough freight traffic to justify it. As for the Roundhouse, DO NOT knock it down, it's a federally appointed heritage site. It is also used by VIA Rail to maintain the Budd RDC's. I am with the group trying to save the Victoria Roundhouse and turn it into a working museum. The shops at Wellcox can handle about 11 locomotives, that's more than the E&N needs.

BTW, there's one other thing I haven't brought up, you want to run equipment from the UK on the E&N. Unfortunately they don't meet North American crashworthiness standards, Transport Canada will not allow you to run them. The only way VIA Rail gets away with running the ex-Eurostar equipment is they are pulling the cars with a locomotive that meets those standards.

DOn't get me wrong here, you have some good ideas, but there are far more cost-effective ways of implementing them. For example instead of using UK-built DMU's, get more Budd RDC's, you won't have to go through all the "red-tape" with Transport Canada and the crews already are familiar with them, you wouldn't have to retrain them. Also waiting until you have more feright customers before getting more locomotives, and when you do get more locomotives, leasing them instead of buying them outright saves a lot of money.

As for having two different companies running the E&N, that's creating confusion and delays in shipping times as the cars would have to be interchanged, it's better to have one railway company running everything.

Also, I think Vancouver Island has less than 1/4(someone correct me if I am wrong) the population of the UK, those type of services are just not needed.

[cascade]

The UK pop is 60M - the Vancouver Island pop 800,000 - I think a very small difference.

The train / rail network in the UK is a few hundred years old. The car is King on the Island.

[Quinsam]

Isn't Port alberni a freight ship place?
maybe they can use rail to move the goods instead of the lorries/trucks.
So, there is no point in making the E&N an Electrified Railway, the 365 car sets are only six or seven years old, the newest additions to the ECML.

[cascade]

Port Alberni - and the Alberni Inlet is very deep. They use to load the news print there for the LA Times - when I worked at the Pulp Mill - great summer job...fork lift truck driver - loaded the paper rolls on to the small rail box cars which in turn took them to the dock for loading onto the large barge which took them to LA.

I think the Mill lost the contract to supply the newsprint. I understand that they were at one time loading "raw" log's on to vessesl for Japan - as there Mills are much better than the ones - at that time in Port Alberni.

The Alberni Inlet is a very good place to go fishing Harry.... or ride the Lady Rose - good trip also.

Now for the $60,000 quesation, can you tell me where the Lady Roase worked before been moved to the Alberni Inlet?

[Quinsam]

Glasgow, Scotland, and was also the first diesel powered, single propellor vessel to cross the Atlantic.

[CN2972South]

ferryman said:

There's one gated crossing in Ladysmith at the Davis/Chemainus Rd crossing, but there has never been a problem there

You're right, I forgot about that one and the First Ave. crossing in Ladysmith now has gates since they widened the highway.

[Ferryman]

Right, I can't believe I forgot to mention that gated crossing...it's the one I've had to cross over the most....I remember when they moved that crossing there, it took them a little while to get it setup right, because it kept on going off when no trains were coming, which was frustrating for people on the highway, because it would make the lights go red.

[CN2972South]

Malahat turns 50

September 12 marks the 50th anniversary of Budd RDC service on the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway. Despite many attempts by Canadian Pacific and VIA Rail to discontinue the service it has managed to cling to life for 50 years(119 years if you count the passenger services from 1886 to 1955 as well). VIA has planned a special run in addition to the regular passenger train for invited guests only on the 12th, there will be other celebrations up and down the line.



First Budd RDC passenger train with CPR RDC-1 9056 at Nanaimo on the southbound trip on Spet. 12, 1955. Bob Walker photo.


CP Rail RDC's 9103(in the classic CP Rail Hockeymask RDC paint scheme) and 9067(with diagonal stripes on the ends) head south at the south siding switch Chemainus in the late 1970's. Gordon Hulford photo.


VIA RDC's 6148 and 6135 layover at Nanaimo before heading south to Victoria. Summer 2003.

Since the E&N Budd RDC passenger service is turning 50, it makes it the oldest continuously run Budd RDC service in North America.

[QSaanich]

My dad is invited to the E&N train ride on the 12th he knows the first conductor on rdc Budd cars but i wanted to be invited oh well

[Ferryman]

Wow, interesting fact on the E&N! That's weird seeing the E&N when it first was put into service!
There is a few BC Rail Buddcars up here in Squamish at the Railway Museum along with the Royal Hudson, but it's in the shop getting repaired, and hopefully put back in service next year or something. But two guys up here managed to get one of the Buddcars working again (BC-33 I believe) and you can ride it for 2 bucks down a 1 mile long track and back. They are also trying to get permission from CN Rail to put it on the mainline as well.

[CN2972South]

Just to clarify, the E&N has been running freight and passenger service since 1886, the current VIA Rail passenger service started in 1955 by CPR is the one turning 50.

Before the Budd Cars the E&N ran conventional passenger trains.

E&N/CP Rail GP38's at Wellcox. About 5 months before the RailAmerica take over.

Mark Johnson photo.

[cascade]

Had a quick look around stuff - things for the "tourist" to do while in BC & on the Island. You know I can't find anything about jumping on a train.

If they want to make money -then they need to make it more Passenger friendly and tourist Friendly easy to find - market the product a lot better.

We had at one - "BC House" - here in London. Since closed down by the NDP - budget cuts - but great for Tourist and a fantastic selling base for business and all things BC.

[CN2972South]

The only train you might see advertised is the Vancouver-Toronto VIA Train #1 "The Canadian".



VIA RDC1's 6133 and 6135 pull into the Victoria Depot. Sept. 12, 2005.