British Columbia Railway
The British Columbia Railway (BC RAIL) was the third largest railway company in Canada until mid-2004 and had its rail network in the province of British Columbia , the westernmost province of Canada. The company was taken over on July 15, 2004 by the Canadian National Railway .
1912 to 1971
The company was founded on February 27, 1912 under the name Pacific Great Eastern Railway (PGE) to build and operate a rail line along Howe Sound on Canada's west coast to the northeast to Prince George . In Prince George, the 470 mile line was to meet the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway . This company was later in the Canadian National Railway (CNR), today's CN.
The Pacific Great Eastern was named after the Great Eastern Railway in Great Britain because some of the money came from British investors. In 1915 the rails from Squamish to Chasm were laid - 283 kilometers - and the 20 kilometer stretch from North Vancouver to Whytecliffe was put into operation.
However, there were quite a few problems as the construction costs soared due to the inhospitable and rugged terrain. World War I made the situation worse as public and private funds went into war bonds. In the winter of 1917/18 the tracks had been laid as far as the Cottonwood River , 28 kilometers north of Quesnel and 29 kilometers south of Prince George - a final gap of about 72 kilometers between the two points remained. At that time, those responsible informed the British Columbia government that funds were completely exhausted. The government then decided to build and operate the railway line on its own.
Railway construction continued under the auspices of the State Roads Administration, but it took until October 1921 for the line from Squamish to Quesnel (560 kilometers) to be operational. The freight cars were ferried across between Squamish and North Vancouver, while the passengers were transported by Union Steamship Company steamers . Although the government had an interest in continuing the line to Prince George, it took another 30 years for this work to continue.
In 1949, construction began on a 129-kilometer extension of the line from Quesnel to the northern transcontinental link of the Canadian National Railway in Prince George. Only a section of the previously straightened route was used for this purpose and the line was officially opened in January 1953. Another long-awaited section, the southern extension between North Vancouver and Squamish, went into operation in August 1956.
In 1957, the PGE set up its communication system using microwave radio - the first of its kind in North America. This made telegraph poles and cables superfluous. Two years later, the extension to the Peace River was completed. This line runs from Prince George 310 kilometers north to Chetwynd , where it forks into two strands: 111 kilometers north to Fort St. John and 98 kilometers northeast to Dawson Creek . On October 5, 1958 this northern extension was the hammering of a golden in Fort St. John and Dawson Creek rail spike ( Golden Spike officially opened) and the land of peace and Cariboo was finally connected to the Pacific.
Further sections were opened in the next few years.
- August 1966: from Kennedy to Mackenzie (37 kilometers)
- August 1, 1968: Odell to Fort St. James (120 kilometers)
- September 10, 1971: Fort St. John to Fort Nelson (402 kilometers)
In December 1969, the government decided to build a 663 kilometer extension from Fort St. James to Cassiar - the so-called "Dease Lake Line". However, the costs rose far more than planned and many subcontractors took the PGE to court.
1972 to 1989
On April 1, 1972, the Pacific Great Eastern Railway was renamed the British Columbia Railway. At the same time, a new company logo with the heraldic flower of British Columbia - the " Dogwood Flower " - was chosen. In December 1975 the internal management of the BCR changed - from now on a board of directors of nine directors from the private sector should determine the fate of the company. This change removed the government's control over the day-to-day operations of the BCR. The high losses of the railway had to be absorbed by the government, so that a commission was formed in December 1976 to dissolve the financial ties between the BCR and the government. The construction of the Dease Lake Line was stopped in 1977.
The structure of the BCR was changed again. The commission welcomed the decision of the BCR not to expand the Dease Lake Line and also advised it not to operate the already built section further north than Fort St. James as long as sufficient traffic was not ensured.
BC RAIL operated the line to the Minaret lumberjack camp ( ) and from there transported wood to the paper mills at Fort St. James and Prince George.
In 1978, the BCR began building a railway line to the coal mining areas in northeast British Columbia. An entire town called Tumbler Ridge was built to supply the Quintet Mine. The 130-kilometer Tumbler Subdivision from Wakely to Quinette was a technological innovation. It was one of the only three railway lines in the world that were electrified with 50 kV alternating current at 60 Hz . The decision to operate under contact wire was made due to the proximity to the W. A. C. Bennett Dam and its power station as well as two tunnels with a total length of 15 kilometers. Seven locomotives of the GF6C series were procured from the Canadian EMD subsidiary General Motors Division in London (Ontario) for operation. The six-axle locomotives had a thyristor rectifier control based on patents from the Swedish locomotive manufacturer ASEA .
The construction of the line including the electrical equipment cost around 402 million dollars.
1990 to 2004
In 1984 BCR was financially restructured. The new BC RAIL Ltd. originated as a tax-paying stock corporation; The main shareholder was the province of British Columbia . Shortly after the restructuring, BC RAIL bought the BC Harbors Board Railway , a railway company that connected BC Rail to the Roberts Bank Superport with a 27-kilometer railway line .
Since then, BC RAIL has been fighting aggressively for market share in freight transport. In 1993 the company bought one of the largest ocean loading terminals "Vancouver Wharves" and in 1998 another large port facility was acquired with "Casco Terminals".
A major setback in business was the end of coal mining in the Tumbler Ridge area, as Canadian coal was no longer in demand due to the huge amounts mined in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming (USA). In 2000, the quintet mine was shut down and electric trains were stopped on this route. The seven existing locomotives were parked. On April 10, 2003, the last coal train from the Bullmoose Mine was dispatched at Teck Loadout. Since then, there has been no more regular traffic on the route.
With the closure of the Quintette mine, BC RAIL lost two thirds of its revenue from coal transport. Around 20% of the operating turnover of the railway company was generated on the entire Tumbler Ridge route. By closing this route, the independent economic future of the company could no longer be guaranteed.
Takeover by the Canadian National Railway
On May 13, 2003, the provincial government of British Columbia announced the sale of BC Rail, previously run as the Crown Corporation . The winner in the bid process should receive the locomotives, freight cars and the necessary service facilities. The track systems and rights of way remain state property and are leased to the operator. On November 25, 2003 it was announced that the Canadian National Railway had won the bid for 1 billion Canadian dollars in front of the Canadian Pacific Railway and US companies. The deal was completed on July 15, 2004.
Subsequently, CP Rail and other unsuccessful bidders suspected that the bidding process had been manipulated, which was rejected by the government. It was also suspected that the program to stimulate the economy along the railway line was intended to encourage the municipalities along the BCR lines to cooperate with the new operator CN.
Web links
- Early documents and newspaper articles on the British Columbia Railway in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
- British Columbia Railway ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
literature
- Louis A. Marre: The Contemporary Diesel Spotter's Guide . 2nd Edition. Kalmbach Publishing Co., Waukesha, WI 1995, ISBN 0-89024-257-7 .
- William D. Middleton : When the steam railroads electrified . 2nd revised edition. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN 2001, ISBN 978-0-253-33979-9 (American English).