BC Rail HO Scale Models

BC Rail, formally known as the British Columbia Railway Company and operating under the reporting mark BCOL, traces its origins to the incorporation of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway on February 27, 1912. The line was conceived as a link between Vancouver and Prince George, where it would connect with the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, and its early financial backers included the prominent contracting firm of Foley, Welch and Stewart. From the outset the enterprise was troubled. By 1915 the railway had opened roughly 283 kilometres of track northward from Squamish to Chasm but was already failing to meet its bond obligations, forcing the provincial government of British Columbia to honor its financial guarantees. Allegations of misappropriated funds contributed to the defeat of the incumbent Conservative government in 1916, and by early 1918 the railway's backers surrendered control to the province for a settlement of approximately 1.1 million dollars. The government thus inherited a disconnected system consisting of a short stub near North Vancouver and a separate segment running between Squamish and Clinton, with no through connection to any major railway or population center. For the next three decades the railway languished as a provincial curiosity, serving primarily to move timber and mineral resources from the British Columbia interior to the coastal port of Squamish, from which goods were barged southward to Vancouver. Expansion resumed in earnest beginning in 1949, and on November 1, 1952, the line was finally extended north from Quesnel to a junction with the Canadian National Railway at Prince George, achieving the original goal set four decades earlier. Between 1953 and 1956 the railway reconstructed its coastal segment to link Squamish directly with North Vancouver, completing that connection on August 27, 1956. Further growth followed rapidly through the late 1950s and into the 1960s, including extensions northeast to Fort St. John and Dawson Creek by 1958, a spur to the forestry town of Mackenzie completed in 1966, and a branch west to Fort St. James finished in 1968. The most ambitious northern reach came with the opening of the Fort Nelson Subdivision on September 10, 1971, pushing the mainline some 400 kilometres north of Fort St. John to within striking distance of the Yukon border. The railway was renamed the British Columbia Railway in 1972 and underwent further corporate restructuring in 1984, at which point the BC Rail branding was formally adopted. During this era the railroad became genuinely profitable, posting earnings consistently from 1978 through 2000. It operated approximately 2,320 kilometres of mainline trackage and provided not only freight service but also passenger and excursion operations, most famously the Royal Hudson steam excursion between North Vancouver and Squamish, which ran seasonally from 1974 to 2001 using a restored Canadian Pacific 4-6-4 locomotive numbered 2860. At its peak BC Rail ranked as the third-largest railway in Canada, a Class II carrier of considerable regional importance to the province's forestry, mining, and agricultural sectors. In 2004 the provincial government of British Columbia completed a controversial transaction under which the freight operations of BC Rail, along with its rolling stock, buildings, and a large portfolio of associated land, were leased to Canadian National Railway for an initial term of 60 years in exchange for approximately 550 million dollars. CN assumed day-to-day operation of the railway's core routes while BC Rail continued to exist as a Crown corporation, retaining ownership of its right of way between North Vancouver and Prince George as well as various real estate holdings throughout the province. The transaction effectively ended BC Rail's independent operational identity, folding its routes into CN's transcontinental network and closing the chapter on one of Canada's most distinctive regionally governed railways. The deal was not without controversy and spawned a lengthy political scandal in British Columbia that occupied public attention for years afterward.