The E&N is gettting back a customer it lost to trucks years ago. A Poleyard, a company called BC Pole, just south of Courtenay will be shipping at least 5 loads off the island per week. They used to ship by rail in the 1980's and early 90's until CP chased them to trucks. No word on when they start shipping but the cars are sitting in Wellcox and the spur is still under construction.
This is good news. I hope it also speaks well of the marketing efforts by this RR operator. Boxcab E50
That is certainly good news to hear. I am assuming there was a spur to the facility before but was removed?
The spur is still in place although the switch has been removed. It will need to be completely rebuilt, it hasn't been used since the early 1990's.
Train went north today with about half a dozen cars for the pole-yard and returned light around 17:30 tonight. They will be picking up the loads on Friday. This is the first regular freight movement to Courtenay since the ICG Propane outlet closed in the summer of 2001 after being bought out by Superior Propane. The pole-yard is also the only customer to be moving goods off the island, all the other customers on the railway receive their product from the mainland and send empties back. This is great news for those who want to see the E&N succeed and is hopefully one of many industries to go back to rail service.
This is great news, glad to hear SRVI is growing business. I was called spare around Xmas on a road switcher to pull the barge, pulled 19 cars, mostly hoppers and a few tanks. Any word about the Alberni line? An engineer I worked with, was telling me about when he started as a brakeman. Running across the tops of boxcars to get retainers going down the big hill near port Alberni.
No plans for the Port Alberni Sub for the time being except Alberni Pacific's attempts to run excursions to Parksville. The Port Sub needs some work before they can start running trains again, the last inspections done found rotten bridge timbers, a few washouts, and a lot of downed trees.
