The Athabasca Northern Railway is a shortline railway in

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

, Canada. Originally built as the

Alberta and Great Waterways Railway Northern Alberta Railways was a Canadian railway which served northern Alberta and northeastern British Columbia. Jointly owned by both Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway, NAR existed as a separate company from 1929 until 19 ...

between 1909 and 1925, the line runs between

Boyle, Alberta Boyle is a village in northern Alberta, Canada within Athabasca County. It is located on Highway 63, approximately north of Edmonton. Boyle is named after former Alberta Minister of Education, Justice John Robert Boyle (1871–1936), and founde ...

and

Fort McMurray, Alberta Fort McMurray ( ) is an urban service area in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo in Alberta, Canada. It is located in northeast Alberta, in the middle of the Athabasca oil sands, surrounded by boreal forest. It has played a significant ...

. It eventually became part of the Northern Alberta Railway, which was jointly owned by the

Canadian National Railway The Canadian National Railway Company (french: Compagnie des chemins de fer nationaux du Canada) is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN i ...

and

Canadian Pacific Railway The Canadian Pacific Railway (french: Chemin de fer Canadien Pacifique) , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadi ...

, and it was closed in 1989. The line was reborn as the Athabasca Northern Railway in 2000 when it was sold to Cando Contracting. By 2007, the track had deteriorated due to increased traffic, and the line was set to be abandoned. It was re-acquired by Canadian National in December 2007, however, and as of 2011, rehabilitation was underway. However as it currently stands in 2023, everything south of Athabasca has been torn up with only a roadbed. There is a small section that spurs off of the Westlock subdivision that was once the Athabasca subdivision, but it only goes so far and is now a storage spur for CN. Anything past this spur however no longer remains.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Athabasca Northern Railway Defunct Alberta railways Canadian Pacific Railway subsidiaries Canadian National Railway subsidiaries