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Historic Railways of the Powell River Area by R Ken Bradley Soft Cover
Historic Railways of the Powell River Area by R Ken Bradley
Soft Cover
99 pages
Copyright 1982
CONTENTS
1 Introduction 1
2 Logging Locomotives 5
3 Bloedel, Stewart and Welch Logging Railway 7
4 Booth Logging Company Railway 17
5 B.C. Cement Company Railway 20
6 B.C. Mills, Timber and Trading Company 24 (Hastings Mill) Railways
7 Brooks, Bidlake and Whittall Railway 27
8 Campbell River Lumber Company Railway 28
9 Cornell Mine Tramway 31
10 Eagle River and Northern Railway 35
11 Gustayson Brothers Logging Railway, including VL Railway 51
12 Haslam Lake Timber and Logging Railway 55
13 Michigan and Puget Sound Railway 58
14 Redonda Logging Company Railway 68
15 Theodosia, Powell Lake and Eastern Railway 71
16 Vancouver Bay Railways 82
17 Vancouver Timber and Trading Company Railway 86
18 Table 1: Chronology 92
19 Table 2: Maximum Lengths of Trackage 93
20 Table 3: Locomotive Rosters 94
21 Table 4: Early Engines of BCMT&T Rlys. 96
22 Table 5: Metric Conversion 96
23 Index 97
INTRODUCTION
A straggling line of slowly disintegrating pilings, still marching out to sea at Myrtle Point, is one of the few relics, a ghostly reminder, of Powell River's "Railway Era". These pilings are all that remain of a railway wharf where trains, slowly descending the steep grades from the woods, discharged their loads into the sea to be boomed up and towed to the sawmills of the lower mainland.
To the discerning observer many signs of this former activity still exist (1981). The sections of district roads constructed on former railway grades, the decaying railway trestles in the second-growth forest, the odd spike in a rotting tie among the trees, the aforementioned wharf pilings, all serve as mute reminders of the trains that rumbled by when the rails were there.
The railways herein described all worked within an area extending from West Redonda Island in the north to Jervis Inlet in the south, and from Texada and Hernando Islands on the west, to the foothills of the Coast Mountains on the east. This will be referred to as the "Powell River Area".
Most of these railways were known by the names of the companies who operated them and/or owned them; but two proudly bore names of their own. Who has heard of the "Theodosia, Powell Lake and Eastern", or the "Eagle River and Northern"? In reference to roads that were owned successively by several companies, the names used are either those of the founders, or of the first company to develop the railway, thus avoiding confusion.
Although the railways were predominantly logging roads, two were associated with mining and quarrying. Most of the logging railways were laid to standard gauge, four feet, 81/2 inches; but two of them were three foot gauge. Mine and quarry lines were also three feet in width.
In the early days those who reported their stories to the trade press or the newspapers frequently used geographical names that have subsequently disappeared, or have been transferred to other areas. For example, Lang's Bay, Wolfssohn Channel, and Wolfssohn Bay were all used to designate the area around the mouth of Lang Creek; while the creek itself (still commonly referred to as Wolfson Creek) has variously been called Sandstone Creek or even Sandstone River. Scow Bay refers to Stillwater.
In the annual report of the B.C. Department of Railways for the year 1954, there appears "A History of Railroad Logging" by Robert E. Swanson. This fine story is worthy of a quotation in part:
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