Tag: History

Canadian Pacific train on the Kooteney line on the banks of the Columbia River.

Rural Canada can be a sad place to be a transit enthusiast.

I sit in my living room, scrolling through social media, watching my brethren enjoying the trappings of transit fandom across the globe.

But here, in rural British Columbia, there are no grand openings of new train lines to attend, no new rolling stock to spot in testing and no functioning transit system to get about on.

On the other hand, freight trains abound!

In the small town on the banks of the Columbia River in the Canadian Rockies where I find myself, big red diesel locomotives emblazoned with ‘Canadian Pacific’ trundle by several times a day and I’m fortunate enough to have them practically in my backyard.

Sometimes they’re pulling assorted goods wagons, mostly they’re laden with coal. One thing I never get to see going by are the smiling faces of trans-continental travellers.

North America is home to some of the world’s busiest and most productive freight railways but the passenger services are famously skeletal. They make NSW Trainlink and V-Line look almost European by comparison. Still better than South Australia, though.

Amtrak, and its Canadian counterpart Via, provide a barebones service across the continent. Sadly for me, that service does not extend very far in Western Canada.

In September 2022 Amtrak restarted their Covid-paused Cascades service from Portland and Seattle to Vancouver, BC, which barely scratches the bottom corner of the province.

Via (pronounced in the North American style with emphasis on the ‘V’ sound: a cleverly chosen name for the bilingual country’s national rail operator being a French word that has been adopted into English) run a couple of routes across BC but they are few, far between and frequency is measured in ‘trips per week’.

It wasn’t always this way.

Canadian Rail History 101

The history of rail service in Canada is expectedly complicated.

The abridged version is that the many varied and competing private and/or publicly funded railways that sprung up in the golden era of rail construction were consolidated through the 20^th century to become two huge companies that own almost all the track in the country (and quite a bit in the United States besides): Canadian Pacific (CP) and Canadian National (CN – of CN Tower fame).

Each company has its own extensive freight network and their own Trans-Continental routes. The more Northern route across the country that passes through cities like Edmonton and Saskatoon is operated by Canadian National and the more Southerly route, passing through Calgary and Regina, by Canadian Pacific.

A screenshot from the Canadian Rail Atlas — Red for CP, Blue for CN. Only tracks in Canada are shown. Via’s passenger services are highlighted. Notice how all those lines crisscrossing the prairies of Alberta and Saskatchewan gather together into a single valley as they approach Vancouver. That is the Thompson River Valley which features the eponymous river, the Trans-Canada Highway and two sets of railway tracks: CN on the northside of the river and CP on the south. This screenshot is pulled from the Canadian Rail Atlas which has a bunch of toggleable layers showing rail service across the country.

In the Golden Age of the railways both companies ran competing transcontinental services for passengers along their respective routes. They fought for business with tight timetabling, reliable services and grandiose marketing campaigns.

1920s Canadian Pacific tourism poster advertising the Fastest Train Across the Continent — This 1924 poster shows what the railways thought discerning customers wanted: fast speeds, stunning vistas and class based segregation!

As the postwar decades brought competition from jet aircraft, and high-speed highways became the order of the day, demand for (and profitability of) the railways plummeted. The railway companies started to close passenger routes forcing the Federal Government to intervene by creating Via to provide passenger service and keep the show on the…rails.

When two (transcontinental train services) become one

When Via first launched in 1977 there were two transcontinental trains: the Canadian that had been run by Canadian Pacific on the Southern route and CN’s Super Continental on the Northern route. Both trains ran every day in both directions.

As planes became faster and cheaper and highways better and more plentiful successive governments took a hatchet to Via’s funding leaving the railway to slowly reduce service and cancel routes.

Fast forward to 2023 and it’s a very different picture. There’s only one route now: it retains the Canadian name, but mostly runs along CN’s Northern route.

Since 1990, Calgary and Regina, the largest city in Alberta and the capital of Saskatchewan respectively, have had no intercity rail service at all.

The now abandoned Calgary Via station is in the podium below the city’s eponymous tower while Regina’s heritage listed Union Station is home to a Province-run Casino!

The Canadian is down to twice a week and delays are so bad that the timetable has been padded out by an extra 12 hours compared to mid-century travel times.

Via’s case isn’t helped by the growth of freight rail in that same time period. Freight is enjoying something of a rail renaissance in North America. Sadly, for train travelers, these freight trains get priority along the way which can leave passengers floundering in remote rail sidings for hours at a time.

It’s a predicament that makes it very, very hard for Amtrak and Via to increase services or guarantee reliability.

Things got so bad that in 2017 just 8% of trans-continental services arrived on time, and that’s despite the 12 hours of padding in the timetable!

The Golden Age in Golden

Golden, BC, was once a rail hub, founded to support the construction of the Trans-Canadian line through Kicking Horse Pass and Rogers Pass (both interesting tales). It’s still a busy freight hub, but passenger service has been declining since the 1950s when passenger services ended on the the Kootenay branch line to Cranbrook and beyond as the highway improved.

When The Canadian was rerouted in 1990, the town lost its last passenger rail service.

Greyhound stepped in to fill the gap, minus the undeniable style of long distance rail travel, largely replicating the train with a coach service between Vancouver and Calgary.

In 2020 Covid hit, and Greyhound pulled out of the Canadian market leaving many towns across the country with no intercity public transport at all. Lucky for Golden a bus line called Rider Express filled the gap providing a pricey coach service once or twice a day. Since then, anyone hoping to reach the mountain hamlet must have access to a motor vehicle, book a $200 airport shuttle or board a slow and expensive coach.

The more well-known nearby tourist towns of Lake Louise, Banff and Canmore have found themselves in a similar predicament. As the popularity of visiting the Rockies skyrockets, mid-century auto-focused planning decisions are causing major headaches. National Parks are replacing overcrowded parking lots with shuttle buses at popular spots like Lake Louise and the owners of Mt Norquay ski resort are considering building a new train line direct from Calgary airport to increase their customer base.

A photo of a train at dusk with spectacular mountains in the background and low fog settled over the river. — 3 CP locos pull a coal train north-bound on the Kootenay line on the banks of the Columbia River. Most likely bound for the Lower Mainland and beyond.

As of 2023 there is still one way to enjoy the magic of rail travel as you cross the Rocky Mountains along the (arguably more scenic) Canadian Pacific track, but you are going to have to pay for it. If you’ve got a spare $2000 per person you can take the Rocky Mountaineer tourist train that runs twice a week in the summer months. You’ll overnight at a hotel midway in Kamloops so it ends up taking 36 hours end to end, 3 times as long as the coach. You also won’t be able to get off in Golden, the train passes through but it doesn’t stop. This is purely a tourist train and is of no practical use for the people that live in the towns along the way. In fact, the train ends in Banff, which doesn’t have an airport or any other train service (yet!), so to get out of there you’ll have to either fork out for a return ticket, rent a car, or take a bus the last hour or so into Calgary.

Christmas Cheer

Each December, however, the sad plight of the Rocky Mountain railways is forgotten, if only for one beautiful neon-lit moment.

In a spectacular branding exercise meets goodwill generating foodbank fundraiser, each December, Canadian Pacific gives something back to the towns that their coal and freight trains ceaselessly rumble through. The Holiday Train brings some of that Wintry Christmas Magic we hear about from Australia, but that you can only truly obtain in the Northern latitudes.

The Canadian Pacific Canadian Holiday Train (they run an American version on their tracks south of the border) has run every year, Covid excepting, since 1999. Last year it left Montreal, in the East of the country, on November 27^th, stopping countless times on its way across Canada before finishing up in Metro Vancouver on December 18^th.

A crowd of people enjoy the entertainment of the Canadian Pacific Holiday Train in Banff on a winter night. — The Holiday Train hit the popular tourist destination of Banff at prime time, 7pm. I suspect a slightly smaller crowd greeted the train in Golden at 2pm the next day.

The train has a few bands and entertainers on-board and is adorned in Christmas lights. It pulls up in each town, possibly near, or at, the abandoned train station, the young (and young at heart…and old, and railway enthusiasts of all ages) take photos, the performers do a few numbers each and, in less than an hour, the train blows its horn and rolls another town down the line to do it all again.

For the towns in the Rocky Mountains and across the vast prairies of Central Canada that grew up alongside Canadian Pacific railways, it’s a beautiful but poignant reminder of what once was. In each town, for one brief hour in December, the Golden Age of rail travel returns.

Stories from Sydney: History of the Harbour City

By Jed C

On May 10, 2021

In Stories from Sydney

For just over a year now I’ve been producing a history podcast alongside my good mate Alistair Taylor. Stories from Sydney: History of the Harbour City was Alistair’s brainchild, born from that perfect combination of a brilliant idea and the covid-lockdown-induced time to accomplish it. I was brought onboard to give it a much needed infrastructure bent and keep him on task.

The premise is simple. Each episode one of us, the host, dives into the history of something in (or around) Sydney we’ve oft wondered about. The listener gets to sit back, learn about something new and chime in with questions, comments and distracting tangents along the way.

First and foremost, we made the podcasts for ourselves. The history of Sydney as taught in school felt so two dimensional. First Nations tribes, penal colony, growing city, global metropolis. The broad strokes were there, but it felt like the detail was missing. We both studied history in high school but came away knowing more about Persepolis, the capital of the ancient Persian empire, than the city we lived in.

We knew there was so much more to find out about the places that were so familiar and that only our ignorance was standing in the way. This isn’t the work of professional historians. We are 100% amateurs when it comes to history (although I will point out Alistair topped our Ancient class in year 12 with perfect marks) so mistakes are made and we’re often going off a single source. Stories from Sydney is about getting an overview of a fascinating tale and hopefully building up a broader understanding of the complex ecological, indigenous, colonial and contemporary stories of our city.

I should add that the name is something of a misnomer. Being based in regional NSW, my tales are prone to wandering well outside the Sydney Basin to explore the history of the land on which so much of Sydney’s wealth has come.

We’ve made 12 episodes in the last 12 months, not bad considering that for the first 6 months Alistair was based in California and we were coordinating recording sessions across a particularly challenging time difference. I should also mention that each episode ends with a clue from host to listener for the topic of the subsequent episode, so best to listen in order!

Stories from Sydney can be found on all the usual podcast platforms (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc.) and in your browser at https://storiesfromsydney.podbean.com/.

Here’s a quick recap of the ground we covered across the 8 episodes of Season 1 in 2020.

1: Sydney Stadium and The World Championship Fight at Rushcutters Bay

Alistair launched our podcast with this absolutely cracker of an episode about the title fight between Jack Johnson and Tommy Burns and the role Sydney played in an important moment in the racial desegregation of the sport of boxing.

2: The Saga of Sydney’s First Railway

My first turn to host and I chose something very on brand; the story of Sydney’s First Railway! The line from Cleveland Fields (Central) to Parramatta Junction (Granville) took a few wrong turns before it finally opened in 1855, quite a few years after the global rail boom had kicked off.

3: The Sydney Language and the Missing Notebooks of William Dawes

Here Alistair tells us about how we came to know a little of the Eora language through the relationship between the English Dawes and Cammeraygal Patyegarang.

4: Celebrating a new Beginning Across the Blue Mountains

In this tale we learn about some of the early expeditions from the colony across the Blue Mountains and a little pub that opened on the other side, in Hartley.

5: The Last Woman Hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol

Louisa Collins was the last female judicially hanged in New South Wales. This episode we discuss a little bit of the working history and geography of southern Sydney and the beginnings of the feminist movement in the town.

6: From the Valley to the Gully

While the early colonists were in awe of the inaccessible Blue Mountains, the people of the Dharug, Wiradjuri and Gundangara Nations used the Mountains as a summer camp and a place for meeting and exchange. This episode explores the history of Indigenous use and displacement in the mountains and how contemporary development on the Cumberland Plain is threatening sacred sites much farther upstream.

7: The Hospital that Rum Built

Lachlan Macquarie turned a glorified penal camp in Sydney Cove into an outpost of empire and a worthy town in its own right. The Hospital on Macquarie Street is one of Sydney’s oldest buildings and its story gives an great insight into the functioning of the colony at the time and the role of rum in those early years.

8: Overengineered and Underdelivered (The Story of the Great North Road)

Our concluding episode for Season 1 explores the first attempt to build a road north from Sydney to the growing settlements on the Hunter River. The road was the Colony’s greatest engineering endeavour at the time but came to irrelevance quite quickly, leaving it as a picturesque and accessible spot to see some 200 year old infrastructure today.

We’re currently on a mid-season hiatus from Season 2, but there are 4 episodes from this year uploaded to enjoy as well. If you’d like to keep up with the podcast you can follow us at facebook or instagram and of course subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Adventures onboard the 445

By Jed C

On January 10, 2019

In Sydney Transport

Last month I explored the idea of a bus route typology; sorting buses into either buses we choose to catch or buses we have to catch. Sydney is rife with places where this antagonism plays out in weird and wonderful ways, but my personal favourite is in the checkered history of the 445 through Leichhardt.

The history of the ‘Balmain to Canterbury line’, as it was once known, is intrinsically tied in to the history of trams in Sydney. The service commenced as a tram in the 1920s until it was closed and replaced by the 445 bus on the 21st of November 1954. The service continued to operate, albeit on rubber instead of steel, for another 46 years until the return of trams to Sydney’s streets precipitated a change to the service.

In August 2000 the light rail was extended to a new terminus at Lilyfield and the 445 was diverted, for the first time in its history, to provide an interchange. This diversion substantially slowed the bus route and made it a much less attractive option for users. So painful was the detour that in the late-2000s a facebook group celebrating the infamous ‘Loop’ appeared, in much the same vein as ‘The universe would cease to exist if the 370 bus came on time‘. The page has since disappeared and if anyone has knowledge of its whereabouts, I’d love to know!

Then, in 2009, realising that the diversion made the 445 all but useless and no one was interchanging to the light rail anyway, State Transit proposed to restore the direct bus route. Obviously something went awry in the community consultation phase (you may recall the days when we had these) because when the bus changes were implemented the deviation continued. Only now it was supplemented with an additional deviation to Marketplace, and a new direct route 444. Both routes were extended to Campsie.

In 2014 the extension of the light rail saw a new station open at Leichhardt North that provided an interchange with the 444, thus completely negating the original justification for the route deviation back in 2000.

Curious as to why the deviation was still in place four years later, I contacted Transport for NSW in September 2018 who advised me that “the route path taken by Route 445 was retained to provide Lilyfield residents continuing direct access to shopping at Leichhardt Market Place and Norton Street, as well as provide interchange opportunities with the Light Rail.”

It seems that the deviation now had a small but vocal constituency who were loathe to have their service taken away. Who can blame them? On the other hand the suggestion that the 445 somehow provided a better light rail connection than the 444 by driving one kilometre down the road is nonsense.

A transport agency that doesn’t know what it wants

When I first started this article in September (I know…) it was business as usual. The 444 and 445 were operating different routes at different times of day as they had since 2009.

It was complicated. And that mere fact that it was complicated isn’t good. As anyone who’s tried to catch public transport outside of their regular commute can attest, simplicity is one of the most important principles of good network design.

In an effort to provide an efficient through service as per the original tram (and then bus) route, as well as please local users of the modified 445, Transport for NSW had opted to run both services, but at different times of day.

Basically, the 445 ran through Leichhardt in ‘shopping hours’, between roughly 9am and 4pm, 7 days a week. The 444 operated everyday before and after this period.

Travel times vary a lot due to traffic conditions, but you were looking at least an additional 8 minutes travel time by taking the 445. Not to mention exposure to some serious traffic congestion and delays turning on and off City West Link.

16 minutes onto your daily commute is significant. But more than that, sitting on the bus while it leaves the usual route to wind around in back streets and sit at traffic lights is extremely frustrating. It makes passengers aware of the fact that this service is not designed to get them anywhere quickly.

Where are we now?

Then, in November 2018, Transport for NSW announced a round of minor network changes starting on December 2nd. These occurred without the community consultation we saw in 2009. The 444 turned out to be short lived (vale 444), the 445 detour to Lilyfield light rail station was removed (they must have gotten my memo), the detour to Marketplace was retained, the service was annexed at Gladstone Park instead of Balmain East Wharf and a new bus route 447 between Lilyfield and Marketplace was introduced.

A small section of Transit System's Region 6 bus map, centred on Leichhardt. It shows the large number of buses running on each of the Norton Street and Marion Street corridors. — An easy interchange between Norton Street and Marion Street services to get to Marketplace (on the corner of Marion and Flood). Not featured on this map: the 370 from Coogee to Marketplace that is operated by State Transit rather than Transit Systems.

All in all, it’s not the worst compromise. The loss of the ferry interchange is disappointing, but I suspect it was poorly used anyway. Through Leichhardt, peak hour and evening riders will suffer a 3 minute penalty due to the loss of the 444. Daytime riders will enjoy a 5 minute quicker journey thanks to the removal of ‘the loop’. The thing is though, everyone could enjoy a quicker journey by removing the unnecessary deviation to Marketplace. A high frequency bus corridor down Marion Street already connects Marketplace to Norton St and the light rail. All someone wanting to get from the 445 route on Norton Street to Marketplace would have to do is get off at Leichhardt Town Hall and take a 370, 436, 438 or 439 down the hill.

Perhaps it’s a gesture to Sydneysiders’ disinclination towards interchanging. It harks back to a less reliable age; a time of costly double dipping of traveltens, a time before metrobuses, opal cards and real time bus tracking.

The inclusion of the 447 is an interesting one and I’ll be keen to see how it goes. The route has an extremely limited function, taking residents of a small part of Lilyfield to Marketplace. It seems that the same residents that managed to keep the 445 deviation in 2009 have secured themselves a direct hourly service. At least now it operates in its own ecosystem and doesn’t impact on the operation of the 445.

With hourly frequency and operating only in daylight hours the 447 isn’t exactly a bus we choose to take. Then again with the 370, 445 and light rail all running frequent nearby services, it’s not a bus that anyone will have to take either. As far as pleasing constituents while minimising the impact on the rest of the transport system, I guess it does the job.

For older and less mobile people one seat rides from home to local destinations are going to be favourable. But at what price? Clearly we can’t have frequent services connecting everyone’s house to everywhere they might need to go. On-demand transport has a role to play here, and Transport for NSW are experimenting enthusiastically.

Interestingly the December 2nd timetable changes largely sought to encourage interchanging in the southern suburbs, so why not in Leichhardt?

Navigating Norton Street

The new 445 timetable simplifies operation by providing a single bus route that runs at a decent frequency all day with service continuing at night. Unfortunately it seems that Transport for NSW lack the confidence in riders’ willingness to interchange and so it suffers an unnecessary 3 minute detour.

Imagine you were trying to get from somewhere on the Inner West Line, say Ashfield, to Rozelle. The sad fact of the matter is that you’d probably just end up taking the train to Town Hall and taking a bus from there. This increases demand for busy CBD-bound services by funneling people unnecessarily through the city. A problem we’re currently in the process of building our way out of, at great expense. If you were driving or cycling on this route there’s no way you would go anywhere near the CBD.

Until our cross-town bus services run with the frequency, reliability and directness that our radial CBD services do; detouring to Central, Town Hall or Wynyard for a cross-town trip will remain de rigeur.

The Canterbury-Balmain corridor has been an important cross-town link for almost 100 years. It connects 2 train lines, 2 high frequency bus corridors, countless local bus routes, 2 light rail stations, a ferry wharf, two hospitals and an almost continual stream of shopping strips. The most recent timetable changes are an improvement in regards to ease of use and frequency, but adding a deviation for morning and evening riders is a step in the wrong direction. In order to be a bus we choose catch the 445 needs to be not only frequent, reliable and easy to use, but also direct.