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Post by Chris City on Mar 10, 2018 17:22:09 GMT -8
I really miss taking photos of this railway. Here's WFP 304 & 302 leading a loaded log train through Nimpkish Valley headed for the dry sort at Beaver Cove. April 15, 2017 WFP 304 ~ Nimpkish Valley by Chris City, on Flickr
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Post by Low Light Mike on Dec 2, 2018 18:45:12 GMT -8
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Post by Starsteward on Dec 3, 2018 10:33:28 GMT -8
Great little video 'LLM' of the 'Santa Train', obviously taken in early morning hopefully one-handing a hot mug of coffee. It must have been the fog and dampness on the ground that gave me the shivers while watching the video. Your video also reached back into the recesses of my memory, and at times that's no small feat, to wonder if anyone has any news of the possible resurrection of passenger rail services on the Island? A commuter rail train between at least Victoria - Nanaimo might alleviate the long waits highway traffic endures on the lower Malahat when accidents occur. And, being the time of season for writing that 'wish-list' letter to Santa, why not dream, speculate, wistfully hope for, a tourist train loaded with cruise-ship passengers embarking at Ogden pier and wending its way ALL the way north to Port Hardy where deep-pocketed visitors could then board one of our Northern vessels to enjoy the beauty of our mid-coast communities and the glories of the Inside Passage to Prince Rupert. …..Just Wishing
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Post by Low Light Mike on Dec 3, 2018 10:42:05 GMT -8
Great little video 'LLM' of the 'Santa Train', obviously taken in early morning hopefully one-handing a hot mug of coffee. It must have been the fog and dampness on the ground that gave me the shivers while watching the video. Your video also reached back into the recesses of my memory, and at times that's no small feat, to wonder if anyone has any news of the possible resurrection of passenger rail services on the Island? A commuter rail train between at least Victoria - Nanaimo might alleviate the long waits highway traffic endures on the lower Malahat when accidents occur. And, being the time of season for writing that 'wish-list' letter to Santa, why not dream, speculate, wistfully hope for, a tourist train loaded with cruise-ship passengers embarking at Ogden pier and wending its way ALL the way north to Port Hardy where deep-pocketed visitors could then board one of our Northern vessels to enjoy the beauty of our mid-coast communities and the glories of the Inside Passage to Prince Rupert. …..Just Wishing Port Alberni gets a few cruise-ship visits in 2019. The usual passenger excursion there is for a train ride from Alberni Quay (the train station) to the McLean Mill for a mill tour (the historic steam-powered saw mill), and return. That's the same trip that happens every weekend in the summertime for regular tourists.
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Post by Blue Bus Fan on Feb 8, 2019 20:49:41 GMT -8
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Post by Low Light Mike on Mar 11, 2019 20:42:05 GMT -8
Over the past couple months, I've been working on a personal hobby project of photographing the various bridges and trestles on the inactive sections of the E&N railway on Vancouver Island. The planning for the various site visits has been fun, with plenty of Google Maps research to find good access points and to get my inventory of structures. I have enjoyed the sites that I've seen so far, with time slipping away from me as I get lost in the moment, sometimes taking 3 hours at a single trestle. The challenge of finding good photo compositions is fun, and I enjoy looking at an industrial structure with a creative purpose. Here's a sample of what I've seen, so far. I decided to do it right and create a series of albums on my Flickr page: HERE IS MY COLLECTION LINKI'm still working on the E&N Victoria Subdivision (Esquimalt to Courtenay), and then I will switch to some Port Alberni Subdivision structures. ------------------------ Niagara Creek, near the Malahat (and a structure that started out near Lytton at Cisco) Niagara Creek trestle, seen from south side. by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr . by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr -------------- Arbutus Creek, near the Malahat: DSC02036 by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr . by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr ---------------- And old spur which used to lead to the original Arbutus Creek bridge: E&N Railway at Arbutus Creek, with the old spur that once was the mainline to the original bridge by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr ----------------- The Malahat tunnel: DSC02302 by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr ----------------- The south overflow channel at Koksilah River: . by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr ------------ The picnic-basket-handle bridge at Koksilah River: . by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr ------------------ The Phoenix Iron Works bridge at Cowichan River: . by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr ---------------- The abandoned Crofton Spur: . by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr . by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr --------------- Harrison Creek, north of Ladysmith: . by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr ------------- Haslam Creek at Cassidy: Haslam Creek by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr ------------- Nanaimo River (I love a deck-truss bridge) Nanaimo River by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr Nanaimo River by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr ------------- Green Lake at north Nanaimo: . by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr . by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr --------------- Bonnell Creek at Nanoose Bay: Bonell Creek by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr ----------------- Hamilton Creek at Nanoose Bay: Hamilton Creek by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr Hamilton Creek by Mike Bonkowski, on Flick -------------- Englishman River near Parksville: - I still love a deck-truss bridge Englishman River by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr Englishman River by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr ---------------- Parksville station water tower (relocated) DSC02967 by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr -------------- Old connection between Port Alberni Subdivision and Victoria Subdivision, north of Parksville Station: . by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr ---------- French Creek Trestle: - the longest structure on the E&N French Creek trestle by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr French Creek trestle by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr ---------------- Little Qualicum River: Little Qualicum River by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr Little Qualicum River by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr Little Qualicum River by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr ----------------- Big Qualicum River: Big Qualicum River by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr Big Qualicum River by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr -------------- Coal Creek, near Fanny Bay: Mile 123 on E&N Victoria Subdivsion, at Coal Creek, near Fanny Bay. by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr ------------ Tsable River, near Fanny Bay: E&N Mile125.5 on the Victoria Subdivision: Tsable River. Seen by me on March 10, 2019. by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr E&N Mile125.5 on the Victoria Subdivision: Tsable River. Seen by me on March 10, 2019. by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr Selfie: E&N Mile125.5 on the Victoria Subdivision: Tsable River. Seen by me on March 10, 2019. by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr -------------
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Neil
Voyager
Posts: 7,151
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Post by Neil on Mar 11, 2019 22:16:45 GMT -8
Wow. Fun with a hobby, artistry, and historical representation. Thanks for sharing, Mike... I'll spend some time further perusing these shots, and any more you do. Well done, and it's nice you had such a good time creating this album.
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Post by futureferrydriver on Mar 29, 2019 14:56:50 GMT -8
Over the past couple months, I've been working on a personal hobby project of photographing the various bridges and trestles on the inactive sections of the E&N railway on Vancouver Island. This is an awesome little project Mike! Thanks for sharing these pictures with us. I’ve always thought it would be a fun trip to start in Victoria somewhere and follow the tracks as far as I could go in a two or three day overnight trip (camping) and see all the trestles and tunnels. Of course I doubt I’d get farther than Duncan within 3 days, but it would be an interesting trip. Perhaps one day when I have a more flexible work schedule... For now the pictures you shared will have to satisfy my curiosity about the E&N railway.
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Post by Starsteward on Mar 30, 2019 8:42:02 GMT -8
I am quite sure I've read somewhere on this thread as to why the rails on this line are in many places double-tracked but be darned if my foggy memory is serving me well at all as I scan 'LLM's' wonderful photo essay of the rail-scenery of Vancouver Island.
And, while I'm at it on this thread, to restate for the umpteenth time, I believe there remains a valid tourism function here but upgrading the system to meet current standards are undoubtedly prohibitive. Sadly.
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Post by Low Light Mike on Mar 30, 2019 12:59:50 GMT -8
I am quite sure I've read somewhere on this thread as to why the rails on this line are in many places double-tracked but be darned if my foggy memory is serving me well at all as I scan 'LLM's' wonderful photo essay of the rail-scenery of Vancouver Island. Do you mean a siding beside mainline, or do you mean the inner guard-rails that are on each bridge & trestle?
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Post by Starsteward on Mar 31, 2019 11:58:42 GMT -8
I am quite sure I've read somewhere on this thread as to why the rails on this line are in many places double-tracked but be darned if my foggy memory is serving me well at all as I scan 'LLM's' wonderful photo essay of the rail-scenery of Vancouver Island. Do you mean a siding beside mainline, or do you mean the inner guard-rails that are on each bridge & trestle? I was referring to what looks like a second set of tracks that lay inside the outer tracks.
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Post by Low Light Mike on Mar 31, 2019 13:15:28 GMT -8
Do you mean a siding beside mainline, or do you mean the inner guard-rails that are on each bridge & trestle? I was referring to what looks like a second set of tracks that lay inside the outer tracks. You'll find these on all bridges and trestles, and they are a guard rail. What is their purpose? If a train de-rails while on the bridge/trestle, the wheels will get caught between the inner & outer rails and this keeps the train from veering off the bridge. They are also an interesting 2nd set of parallel lines to serve me in my photography, haha.
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Post by Starsteward on Mar 31, 2019 14:41:03 GMT -8
I was referring to what looks like a second set of tracks that lay inside the outer tracks. You'll find these on all bridges and trestles, and they are a guard rail. What is their purpose? If a train de-rails while on the bridge/trestle, the wheels will get caught between the inner & outer rails and this keeps the train from veering off the bridge. They are also an interesting 2nd set of parallel lines to serve me in my photography, haha. Thank-you for the 2-rail edification 'LLM'. Honestly I'd never heard the de-railment explanation. I had thought that the second set of tracks was to accommodate narrower gauge railway cars. As for the 2nd set of parallel lines explanation, I'll take your word at face value but I 'think' you might be pullin' my leg there 'LLM'
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Post by Low Light Mike on Apr 29, 2019 20:15:14 GMT -8
Here's a video view of me playing around on an old railway trestle, at Cameron Lake on Vancouver Island.
This trestle, part of a series of 4 along the lake, has been train-less since 2001.......and it shows.
I found that the sturdiest path was the space between a guard-rail and train-rail, because the support beams ran directly underneath that path.
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Post by Low Light Mike on Jun 12, 2019 12:26:12 GMT -8
Here is my latest railway trestle video, and it shows how I explore and plan my photography angles when I visit a new-to-me location.
This is on the inactive Port Alberni line of the E&N Railway on Vancouver Island. No trains here since 2001, but there was a NARCOA speeder tour in 2016.
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Post by Low Light Mike on Jul 2, 2019 18:59:20 GMT -8
I recently visited the Kinsol Trestle on Vancouver Island. This is the one trestle where people are encouraged to visit and to walk across....because it's part of the Cowichan Valley Trail and the Trans-Canada Trail. The trestle started out as a Canadian Northern Pacific Railway project which got delayed by the Great War. It was finished as a CN bridge in the 1920s and was part of the line that connected Victoria to Youbou on Cowichan Lake. Here's a link to my album with 51 photos in it: H E R EAn example.... Kinsol Trestle (Koksilah River) by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr
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Post by Low Light Mike on Jul 18, 2019 13:04:16 GMT -8
Here's a video tour of a visit I made to the 4 dormant locomotives of the closed-down Englewood Logging Railway on northern Vancouver Island.
The locomotives might get scrapped soon, might get sold, or might stay where they are for 30 more years.
In any case, I had the time, so I made the trip and saw what I wanted to see.
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Post by Starsteward on Jul 19, 2019 16:30:50 GMT -8
Here's a video tour of a visit I made to the 4 dormant locomotives of the closed-down Englewood Logging Railway on northern Vancouver Island. The locomotives might get scrapped soon, might get sold, or might stay where they are for 30 more years. In any case, I had the time, so I made the trip and saw what I wanted to see. Your very interesting video poses several questions for me. 'LLM', is that whole territory on which the rail lines and railway equipment located on what we would call 'public lands' or is there ownership of them by the logging companies? I am disturbed that rail equipment can be left to be vandalized, rot or present environmental dangers to the area. Aren't the logging/forestry companies that were active in the area somehow responsible for some sort of environmental stewardship? Apart from the above-mentioned concerns, with all you postings of rail lines, trestles etc. I always envision some sort of multi-line tourist project that could benefit many areas of Vancouver Island which has so many stories to tell the world.
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Post by Low Light Mike on Jul 19, 2019 19:33:17 GMT -8
Your very interesting video poses several questions for me. 'LLM', is that whole territory on which the rail lines and railway equipment located on what we would call 'public lands' or is there ownership of them by the logging companies? I am disturbed that rail equipment can be left to be vandalized, rot or present environmental dangers to the area. Aren't the logging/forestry companies that were active in the area somehow responsible for some sort of environmental stewardship? Apart from the above-mentioned concerns, with all you postings of rail lines, trestles etc. I always envision some sort of multi-line tourist project that could benefit many areas of Vancouver Island which has so many stories to tell the world. I'm not sure if the land up in the Nimpkish Valley is owned by Western Forest Products, or if it is Crown land where WFP has a tree license for harvesting. As to the clean-up, I think that they are soon to be pulling-up rails, and likely scrapping the old locomotives. That's what I've heard in rumours on Facebook groups. For the moment, I've heard that 3 of the 4 locomotives have their engines started each month. Sorry, not much in the way of answers for you. Yes, the tourism potential is excellent. Some talk of linking the E&N Railway (ends in Courtenay) to the Englewood Railway, but that dream has the same limitation that delayed a highway until the late 1970s: the rugged land north of Sayward is a transportation barrier.
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Post by WettCoast on Aug 16, 2019 21:30:17 GMT -8
CP 'hockey mask' Dayliner 9069 @ ExpoRail (the Canadian Railway Museum) in St Constant, Quebec (near Montreal) - 2 July 2019. I have included this here because CP operated an identical dayliner on the E&N Railway from the mid 1950's until Via Rail took over in the latter part of the 1970's. I remember these passing through Bowser twice daily (except Sundays), north bound at about 12:20 and returning south at about 14:00. Pity it is no longer around.
CP also operated dayliners like this across southern BC on their Kootenay - Kettle Valley route, though that passenger service was gone by the mid 1960's.
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Post by Low Light Mike on Sept 8, 2019 12:10:18 GMT -8
Similar to the days of early morning starts for ferry trips, I recently did an early morning trip to the Malahat area of southern Vancouver Island. The purpose of the trip was to do photography and video of three key pieces of E&N Railway infrastructure, in an area that hasn't seen trains since 2011. 1) The Malahat rail tunnel - short, but the only railway tunnel on the Island 2) The Arbutus Creek Canyon trestle - tall, with a nice curve, and two orange-painted 4-legged trestle-piers. In infrastructure terminology, a "Trestle" is a support, usually wide at the bottom and narrow on top, like the support for a table or like the support for a railway crossing. 3) The Niagara Canyon bridge - tall and a cantilever truss bridge that was fabricated in England in the early 1880s, was shipped to BC via Cape Horn, was installed at Cisco on the Fraser River, and was later moved to Vancouver Island in 1912. The main goal was to be at Arbutus Creek Canyon trestle at the start of dawn, and to linger there until after sunrise. This is the second time that I've seen this holy-trinity in 2019, and both times I've parked off the Highway-1, on the Malahat, just near the Tunnel. So my day started with a 2:10am wake-up, and then a 2:30-4:00am drive down from Nanaimo to the Malahat. My first order of business was a 20-minute bushwack hike up a steep slope with just a rough trail in places. There was one spot where I crawled under the branches of a bush. Once up at the railway grade, I sat on the rails for a few minutes to rest, and set up my camera on my tripod. (PS: bear-spray on my belt, whistle around my neck, and lots of Freddie Mercury "Ayyyyy-O" calls by me to let any critters know that a humanoid was around.) The tunnel was first up, and I enjoyed it with stars in the sky at each portal. Malahat Railway Tunnel by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr Then I made my way to Arbutus Creek Canyon, and arrived when the stars were still plentiful in the sky, but it was tough to see the structure of the trestle: Arbutus Canyon Trestle by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr Rapidly it got lighter, and I enjoyed the perfect balanced lighting of the dawn: Arbutus Canyon Trestle by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr Then, sunrise happened: Arbutus Canyon Trestle by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr I ended up being at Arbutus Creek Canyon from 5:00am to 8:00am. It was lots of fun. Here's a link to my very-detailed video of the experience: Then it was off to the 3rd item, which is the popular tourist hiking destination of Niagara Creek. The bridge and setting are real and spectacular: Niagara Canyon Cantilever Bridge by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr Niagara Canyon Cantilever Bridge by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr Niagara Canyon Cantilever Bridge by Mike Bonkowski, on Flickr ...and I made a video of my Niagara visit: The video monologue includes mention of my disdain for the Instagram use of this bridge as #GoldstreamTrestle and the people who turn it into a hashtag location. I try to counter that culture with my creepy love for a cantilever truss.
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Post by roeco on Sept 8, 2019 19:37:32 GMT -8
Here's a video tour of a visit I made to the 4 dormant locomotives of the closed-down Englewood Logging Railway on northern Vancouver Island. The locomotives might get scrapped soon, might get sold, or might stay where they are for 30 more years. In any case, I had the time, so I made the trip and saw what I wanted to see.
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Post by roeco on Sept 8, 2019 19:38:20 GMT -8
Hey Mike was the Englewood railway narrow gauge? or reg like E&N?
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Post by Low Light Mike on Sept 8, 2019 19:50:27 GMT -8
Hey Mike was the Englewood railway narrow gauge? or reg like E&N? Standard gauge. Not narrow.
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Post by Low Light Mike on Nov 12, 2019 23:44:52 GMT -8
I recently visited the site of the "Last Spike" on the E&N Railway, on Vancouver Island.
John A. MacDonald drove the spike in August 1886, on his only visit to Vancouver Island (where he was a Member of Parliament at the time).
My quest for the historic site was a good reason for a walk along a maple-leaf carpeted railway on southern Vancouver Island.
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