Newfoundland Railway

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jcrtrains		#1 Posted : 05 September 2022 20:44:46(UTC) Retweet
Joined: 31/10/2009(UTC) Posts: 597 Location: Toronto, Ontario		Folks; Mark (Mark5) brought up an excellent point on a recent thread, that we should appreciate our railroad history close to home. With this in mind, our family visited the Newfoundland Railway Costal Museum in St John's on our recent holiday in Newfoundland. Newfoundland represented the last province that my wife and I had not visited. It was a great vacation with stunning scenery, some great history and amazing Newfoundland hospitality. The Newfoundland Railway Costal Museum captures both the history of the Newfoundland Railway and the history of the Newfoundland and Labrador Costal Boat service. The two were closely intertwined in the history of the province. The railway itself was built in the late 1800's, covered 906 miles and was closed completely in 1988. The railway was built and operated by private groups, most notably the Reid family (who also operated the Costal Boat service) until 1923. At that point, the Reid's could not sustain the losses and the railway and boat service passed to government control. When Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949, the railway passed to CN control. Note the railway was 3' 6" gauge and did not interact with any of Canada's other railway lines. The museum is very interesting and well worth the visit. I have provided a few pictures from the museum. Additionally, the following links provide the information on the museum and the history of the Newfoundland railway. Thanks Newfoundland Railway history Newfoundland Railway Costal Museum

11 users liked this useful post by jcrtrains		bph, kiwiAlan, PJMärklin, Wildrose-Wally, ONR, Roland, marklinist5999, PMPeter, michelvr, dominator, Mark5
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Mark5		#2 Posted : 07 September 2022 21:42:59(UTC) Retweet
Joined: 29/01/2012(UTC) Posts: 1,420 Location: Montreal, Canada		Sounds like a wonderful visit you had JCR, Thank you for posting the photos and glad you are well. Keynote point: As you indicate by using "was", sadly there is no more railway on the island of NFLD. (also in your links). It was 3 feet 6 inches and the longest narrow gauge network in NA at 906 miles (1,458 km). Somehow I can't help but feel we had failed the island in more than just the railway. Fishing too became a bust with the Cod virtually wiped out and mysteriously vanished after a 'critical mass' of fish needed went under count. The part that interests me the most about the island's railway history is the post-war: "... Newfoundland became the 10th province of Canada on March 31, 1949, and the Newfoundland Railway's assets were transferred to the control of the federal Crown corporation Canadian National Railway (CNR, CN post-1960). CN became a major presence in Newfoundland's early years as a province, controlling the railway, dry dock services, many ferries and coastal boats, and the telegraph system. The Newfoundland Railway's premiere cross-island passenger train, The Overland Limited was renamed the Caribou by CN, although it was known colloquially as The Newfie Bullet. CN maintained the Caribou until 1969. CN made major capital improvements, upgrading the main line, bridges, and rolling stock, and replacing steam locomotives with diesel units. Additional improvements were made to the ferry service, with new vessels and an expanded terminal at Port aux Basques. An additional indirect service improvement to the Newfoundland railway operations was made in 1955, with the opening of the Canso Causeway, linking Cape Breton Island with mainland North America and removing the need to ferry railcars destined for Newfoundland across the Strait of Canso. CN trains at St. John, 1968 CN's Newfoundland operations continued to see significant traffic increases with its improved ferry and rail connections, but faced increased truck and bus competition on completion of the Trans-Canada Highway across the island in 1965. New railcar-capable ferries were introduced; mainland standard-gauge railcars were ferried to Newfoundland, where their standard-gauge bogies were replaced with narrow-gauge bogies in Port aux Basques. This innovation was unsuccessful. The first casualty was the passenger rail service, which was abandoned in 1969 in favour of buses. CN began to essentially stop marketing its own Newfoundland rail operations through the 1970s and began to rely on trucks for hauling cargo. In 1979, CN reorganized its narrow-gauge system into Terra Transport, as a means to separate the subsidy-dependent Newfoundland rail operations from its mainland North America core freight rail system. Rail cargo traffic continued to decline, and all branch lines on the island were closed in 1984. In 1987, Canada deregulated its railway industry, allowing abandonments to proceed with less red tape. The former CN subsidiary CN Marine was reorganized into Marine Atlantic in 1986 and one of the two railcar ferries was sold off, leaving the narrow-gauge system with limited interchange ability at Port aux Basques in its final two years." And the fact the railway is yet alive and well in Labrador https://en.wikipedia.org...ore_and_Labrador_Railway An interesting sidebar is the Aboriginal owned railway that provides limited passenger service in one region but mostly freight for mining: Their site says Tshiuetin Rail Transportation Inc. is 132.5 miles of railway connecting Emeril, Labrador and Schefferville, Quebec. We've wanted to take this line as tourists, but family life and finances limit us. There are four or five photos of the rugged landscape the line traverses and a very interesting map of all the tiny stops along the route on their own website: https://www.tshiuetin.net/ https://en.wikipedia.org...etin_Rail_Transportation https://www.railjournal....ay-receives-extra-funds/
		DB DR FS NS SNCF c. 1950-65, fan of station architecture esp. from 1920-70. In single point perspective, where do track lines meet?

1 user liked this useful post by Mark5		jcrtrains
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