Vancouver Island joining Canada The history of an island railway and a functioning island railway in perpetuity started with the
colony of Vancouver Island joining British Columbia in 1866,
Canadian Confederation in 1867, and the incorporation of
British Columbia (BC) into Canada in 1871. The terms of union required that, within two years, the federal government was to start the construction of a railway from the "seaboard of British Columbia", joining the new province and Victoria with the
railway system of Canada. On its part, British Columbia was to grant a band of public land of up to in width along either side of the railway line to the federal government for it to use in furtherance of the construction of the railway. The Pacific terminus of the railway was not specified, but the proposed plan would have the railway cross the
Rockies by the
Yellowhead Pass and reach the BC coast at
Bute Inlet. It would cross
Sonora Island and
Quadra Island and reach Vancouver Island by a bridge across
Seymour Narrows. Through the influence of then BC Premier
Amor de Cosmos, this plan was adopted by
Order in Council by the federal government on 7 June 1873. Two shipments of rail were even delivered to Victoria from the United Kingdom. In 1873,
Prime Minister of Canada John A. Macdonald had stated that
Esquimalt, the site of a
naval base, would be the terminus of the "Pacific Railway". However, both the federal government and the
Canadian Pacific Railway placed a low priority on construction of an island railway, as it had low traffic potential and would duplicate an existing steamer service. In 1874, British Columbia threatened to withdraw from Confederation, and BC premier
Walkem petitioned
Queen Victoria for relief from these delays. Prime Minister
Alexander Mackenzie and Walkem agreed to accept arbitration of the dispute by the
Earl of Carnarvon, the
colonial secretary. His award, given 17 November 1874, gave an extension of time for the construction and required that a railway be built from Esquimalt to
Nanaimo. Despite the promises of both parties to be bound by his ruling, the federal government bill approving the award failed in the
Canadian Senate. British Columbians were indignant, and withdrawal from Confederation was raised again.
John A. Macdonald gave a speech in 1881 in the
House of Commons on the CPR and criticized Alexander Mackenzie for tinkering with the preconditions of British Columbia and Vancouver Island uniting with Canada. MacDonald said, "Both the Government of which I was the head and the Government of which he was the head were bound by the original resolutions." He continued, "It was admitted that it was a sacred obligation; it was admitted that there was a treaty made with British Columbia, with the people and the Government of British Columbia, and not only was it an agreement and a solemn bargain made between Canada and British Columbia, but it was formally sanctioned by Her Majesty's Government. It was a matter of Colonial policy and Imperial policy in England that the road should be constructed."
Land grants Coal Baron Robert Dunsmuir Robert Dunsmuir, the
Nanaimo coal baron and a member of the provincial legislature, was interested in owning the railway project and in the province's coal reserves. The fact that Dunsmuir was a member of the provincial government making the deal aroused some suspicion about corruption. Dunsmuir and three partners (
Charles Crocker,
Collis P. Huntington and
Leland Stanford of California) incorporated the Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway (less formally the E&N Railway), with Dunsmuir president and owner of one half of the shares. The company estimated that it would cost $1.5 million to construct. Dunsmuir planned to integrate the railway with the systems being built in
Washington and
Oregon, with a
train ferry link from Victoria. MacDonald gave
British Columbia the choice of Dunsmuir or Lewis M. Clement of
San Francisco, chief engineer of the Western Division of the
Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, for the contract. Dunsmuir travelled to Ottawa in 1882 with letters of introduction from
John Hamilton Gray, one of the
Fathers of Confederation, and
Joseph Trutch, the first
lieutenant governor of British Columbia, both men in favour with Macdonald. After a visit to Ottawa to present himself directly for this project, Dunsmuir went off to Scotland. While in Scotland, Dunsmuir received the news that the provincial government had chosen the Vancouver Land and Railway Company controlled by Clement for the job. Dunsmuir was surprised that Clement would take the contract without a cash grant in addition to the land and commit to building the railway to
Seymour Narrows, near
Campbell River. When Clement and his company failed to come up with the necessary financial security, Macdonald quickly moved to accept Dunsmuir's terms.
Settler rights The court ruled that this grant did not entitle the railway to dispossess existing settlers. The company applied for compensation and received a further grant of between
Crown Mountain and Seymour Narrows. In 1883, the
British Columbia government signed a contract with Dunsmuir to build a railway between Esquimalt and Nanaimo in exchange for the same grant of land that Clement had negotiated, amounting to , plus a cash grant of $750,000 from the federal government. Based on an average value of $10 per acre for the land the E&N received, it cost the government $626,660 per mile to build the railway, which when complete was in private hands. The railway was given a massive amount of
old-growth forest. Proceeds from the land grants helped build
Craigdarroch Castle. The grant amounted to almost 10 percent of
Vancouver Island and included mineral rights and all known coal deposits. The land grants to the E&N railway from 1884 to 1925 amounted to 20 percent of Vancouver Island. The company was to receive a grant with the following boundaries (Muir Creek is about west of
Sooke): :On the south by a straight line drawn from the head of
Saanich Inlet to Muir Creek, on the
Straits of Fuca; :On the west, by a straight line drawn from Muir Creek, aforesaid, to
Crown Mountain; :On the north, by a straight line drawn from Crown Mountain to
Seymour Narrows; and :On the east, by the coast line of Vancouver Island to the point of commencement. The grant was facilitated by BC's introduction of the
Settlement Act in December 1883, in which surface rights of existing "squatters" were acknowledged and protected.
Construction at
Cisco, where it became known as the
Cisco Bridge. It was moved to Vancouver Island for the present crossing in 1910. The last spike was gold and the hammer was silver. On 13 August 1886, the last spike was driven at
Cliffside, Shawnigan Lake, about north of Victoria. Construction of the island railway took three and a half years. Prime Minister Macdonald drove the last spike, during his only visit to British Columbia. The railway was extended to Dunsmuir's mine at
Wellington in 1887, and into Victoria in 1888. It was extended west to
Port Alberni in 1911, west to
Lake Cowichan in 1912, and north to
Courtenay in 1914. The E&N Railway was to have been built all the way to
Campbell River, but that plan fell through due to the outbreak of
World War I. The present-day bridge, north of Victoria, over Niagara Creek Canyon () previously
crossed the Fraser River at
Cisco, British Columbia and was moved to Niagara Creek Canyon circa 1910. The cantilever suspension bridge was pre-fabricated in England in 1883 and shipped to Canada. It replaced the original wooden trestle bridge, which was damaged in a washout on 12 November 1886.
CPR years In 1905, Robert Dunsmuir's son,
James Dunsmuirformer BC premier and soon-to-be lieutenant governor) sold the E&N Railway to the Canadian Pacific Railway. The CPR built the railroad to
Lake Cowichan,
Port Alberni,
Parksville,
Qualicum Beach, and
Courtenay. At its peak, the railroad had 45 stations on the main line, 3 stations on the Cowichan line, and 8 stations on the Port Alberni line. Between 1905 and 1999, the E&N Railway was owned and operated by the
Canadian Pacific Railway.
Via Rail took over operation of CPR's passenger train service, called
The Malahat, in 1978 when CPR demarketed its freight operation, claiming that freight traffic was declining. In 1996, CPR reorganized the E&N as an "internal short line" named E&N Railfreight while the
railbarge operations were sold to
Seaspan Intermodal. In early 1999, shortline operator
RailAmerica purchased the route from Nanaimo to Port Alberni, and leased the balance of the line. At that time, approximately 8,500 carloads of forest and paper products, minerals, and chemicals were transported by the Southern Vancouver Island Railway each year.
RailAmerica train operated by
VIA Rail at
Qualicum Beach In 1998, CPR sold the middle part of the corridor to RailAmerica. Despite the purchase by RailAmerica, freight traffic continued to decline and the future of the E&N was still in doubt. RailAmerica sought a sale for its acquisition due to unprofitability and deferred maintenance issues. Restrictions from Canadian Pacific on the lease/sale agreement, and major reconstruction of
Highway 1 from Victoria to Nanaimo and
the new freeway from Nanaimo to Campbell River, led to reduced driving times for the full length of the E&N. This development also affected the privately owned rail line, which did not have the benefit of the provincial subsidies accorded to its competing highways. Freight traffic dropped to about 2,000 carloads a year after the loss of their largest freight customer, a
Catalyst Paper pulp mill in Port Alberni. RailAmerica ceased to operate the E&N on 30 June 2006, with the Washington Group's
Southern Railway of British Columbia taking over operations the following day.
VIA Rail In 1978,
VIA Rail assumed operational responsibility for the E&N Railway passenger service. Post ICF ownership, the rail operator agreement had the private company Southern Railway operate the daily inter-city passenger service from Victoria to Courtenay on behalf of VIA Rail. Train tickets had to be purchased three days in advance to avoid an increase in the cost of the fare. In 2011, due to the disrepair of the railway, VIA Rail and Southern Railway suspended the
Dayliner passenger service, the
Victoria–Courtenay train indefinitely. The train had scheduled stops at
Duncan,
Nanaimo, and
Parksville, with many other
flag stops (stops on request) along the way. VIA and Southern Railway did offer a bus service for several months after the closure, but the service was discontinued August 7, 2011. VIA's bus tickets had to be bought three days in advance and fewer than ten people a day used their temporary bus service. The VIA passenger service used
Budd-built
Rail Diesel Cars (Dayliners). Those rail cars are no longer on Vancouver Island, and at least one is now owned by Rapido Trains, a model railroad company.
Names Until 1996, it was called the Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway (which it is still called by people living on the Island). It then spent three years as
E&N Railfreight, an internal short line within then owner
Canadian Pacific Railway. Operations were then sold to
RailAmerica. The RailAmerica subsidiary was named
E&N Railway Co (1998) Ltd. , thus maintaining the historic name associations for the Vancouver Island line. Currently, the right of way and rail line is owned by the
Island Corridor Foundation and operated under contract by
Southern Railway of British Columbia, a part of the
Washington Companies. ==Island Corridor Foundation==