Englewood Railway was a
logging railroad
A forest railway, forest tram, timber line, logging railway or logging railroad is a mode of railway transport which is used for forestry tasks, primarily the transportation of felling, felled logs to sawmills or railway stations.
In most cases th ...
on northern
Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada, province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are o ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
. Headquartered in
Woss
Woss, also commonly known as Woss Lake after the nearby lake of the same name, is a small village in the Nimpkish Valley, located southeast of Port McNeill and north of Campbell River on Highway 19, in northeastern Vancouver Island, British C ...
,
British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
, the line ran from
Vernon Lake
Vernon Lake is a man-made lake in Vernon Parish, Louisiana. In 1963, Vernon Lake was created by the impounding of Anacoco Creek (Anacoco Bayou), creating a lake for the purpose of water supply and recreation. The lake is five miles west of Lees ...
, through Woss, and past
Nimpkish Lake Provincial Park to
Beaver Cove. It was the last operating logging railroad in North America.
After 100 years of use, railway operations ceased on November 7, 2017, following a deadly
derailment
In rail transport, a derailment occurs when a rail vehicle such as a train comes off its rails. Although many derailments are minor, all result in temporary disruption of the proper operation of the railway system and they are a potentially ...
in April of that year.
History
The demand for wood products during the First World War led to the construction of a pulp mill, sawmill, shingle mill and community at Beaver Cove by ''Beaver Cove Lumber & Pulp Limited'' in 1917, which in turn brought about large-scale railway logging operations in the lower Nimpkish Valley. The active logging company was ''Wood & English'' (owned by the ''Nimpkish Timber Company'') which established a
logging camp
A logging camp (or lumber camp) is a transitory work site used in the logging industry. Before the second half of the 20th century, these camps were the primary place where lumberjacks would live and work to fell trees in a particular area. Many ...
('Camp 8', later 'Nimpkish') and logging railway at the head of Nimpkish Lake. The logs cut from this area were hauled by an isolated logging railway, dumped into Nimpkish Lake, then towed down the lake to a reload centre where they were lifted out of the water and finally loaded onto railway cars for a short haul on a second rail line to Beaver Cove. The mill complex at Beaver Cove had a relatively short life, but in 1925 ''Wood & English'' built another sawmill across the bay from the pulp mill, and renamed the community
"Englewood"—a combination of the names Wood and English. That mill ceased operation in 1941 and few signs remain of the former mills and community. After this date all logs were dumped in the Beaver Cove booming grounds for towing to mills in the
Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
area.
In 1944 the founders of
Canadian Forest Products
Canfor Corporation is an integrated forest products company based in Vancouver, British Columbia.
History
The company traces its roots to the late 1930s when brothers-in-law John G. Prentice and L.L.G. "Poldi" Bentley (surname changed from Bloch ...
or ''Canfor'' acquired the timber interests and logging operations in the Nimpkish Valley, which later became known as the ''Englewood Logging Division.'' By 1948, the railway had been extended south of Nimpkish. A new logging camp was established near Woss Lake which became the headquarters and maintenance centre for the railway.
A major forest fire in 1952 and the need to salvage the burned over timber led to a further extension of the railway and establishment of the Vernon Lake logging camp and reload facility. Meanwhile, the gap between the two rail lines at Nimpkish Lake continued to exist. Recognizing that the multiple handling of logs was inefficient and costly, in 1957 ''Canfor'' built the rail link along the east side of the lake. Englewood's logging railway line had now reached its full extent, with a main line between Beaver Cove and Vernon and reload sites at Vernon, Maquilla, Woss, and 'Camp A'. The maintenance shops were later relocated from Woss to Nimpkish.
The railroad was purchased by
Western Forest Products
Western Forest Products Inc. is a Canadian lumber company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
History
Following its initial acquisition of the assets of Doman in 2004, the Company undertook a series of restructuring activities includin ...
in 2006 and renamed ''Englewood Railway of Western Forest Products''.
Over the past decade, all the old
wood
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin th ...
trestle bridge
A trestle bridge is a bridge composed of a number of short spans supported by closely spaced frames. A trestle (sometimes tressel) is a rigid frame used as a support, historically a tripod used to support a stool or a pair of isosceles trian ...
s have been replaced by
steel
Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistant ty ...
bridge
A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...
s. Many of the bridges have
plank
Plank may refer to:
*Plank (wood), flat, elongated, and rectangular timber with parallel faces
*Plank (exercise), an isometric exercise for the abdominal muscles
* Martins Creek (Kentucky), the location of Plank post office
* ''The Plank'' (1967 fi ...
ed
decks to allow
logging truck
A logging truck or timber lorry is a large truck used to carry logs. Some have integrated flatbeds, some are discrete tractor units, and some are configured to spread a load between the tractor unit and a dollied trailer pulled behind it. Ofte ...
s to cross them. The railway formerly used untreated ties milled locally from
yellow cedar Yellow cedar is a common name for several trees and may refer to:
*''Cupressus nootkatensis'', native to northwestern North America
*'
*''Thuja occidentalis
''Thuja occidentalis'', also known as northern white-cedar, eastern white-cedar, or arbo ...
, but is now making increasing use of steel
ties TIES may refer to:
* TIES, Teacher Institute for Evolutionary Science
* TIES, The Interactive Encyclopedia System
* TIES, Time Independent Escape Sequence
* Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science
The ''Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science' ...
.
In January 1995, a mudslide destroyed part of East Fork Bridge. It was repaired within 2 weeks, and no equipment was damaged or personnel injured.
On April 20, 2017, a train being re-loaded rolled down the track and crashed into a train maintenance car resulting in a derailment. The crash killed three workers and spilled a load of logs across the track.
Operations on the railway were immediately halted after the incident. A faulty coupler lock on one of the cars failed to fully secure the knuckle on the coupler and caused a cut of 11 cars to uncouple from the movement. A
derail
A derail or derailer is a device used to prevent fouling (blocking or compromising) of a rail track (or collision with anything present on the track, such as a person, or a train) by unauthorized movements of trains or unattended rolling stock. ...
failed to stop the cars after it was damaged by the lead truck of the first car, with rotten ties a contributing factor.
On November 7, 2017, almost 7 months following the deadly derailment, Western Forest Products announced the closure of the Englewood Railway stating that the logs will now be transported by truck at a lower cost and more efficient process. In June 2019, Western Forest Products announced it would be removing all of
railway track
A railway track (British English and UIC terminology) or railroad track (American English), also known as permanent way or simply track, is the structure on a railway or railroad consisting of the rails, fasteners, railroad ties (sleepers, ...
, leaving
bridge
A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...
s and
trestle
ATLAS-I (Air Force Weapons Lab Transmission-Line Aircraft Simulator), better known as Trestle, was a unique electromagnetic pulse (EMP) generation and testing apparatus built between 1972 and 1980 during the Cold War at Sandia National Laborato ...
s intact.
Operation
Logs were brought from the hills, where they were cut to rail loading points at Vernon, Maquilla, Woss and 'Camp A' via logging trucks and then loaded onto rail cars. Up to 22,000 carloads were hauled per year, in 2 to 3 trains per day,
although this amount was greatly reduced by the time the railroad ceased operations.
Typically, one locomotive worked the south end, handling the Vernon, Maquilla and Woss reloads, while two locomotives worked the north end (since the
grades
Grade most commonly refers to:
* Grade (education), a measurement of a student's performance
* Grade, the number of the year a student has reached in a given educational stage
* Grade (slope), the steepness of a slope
Grade or grading may also r ...
are much steeper there) including Camp A reload and Beaver Cove log sort. The trains were handed off just north of Woss at a place called Siding 4.
Typically, the north-end operation had the two locomotives (running cab forward) pulling 35-45 loaded log cars, with a
caboose
A caboose is a crewed North American railroad car coupled at the end of a freight train. Cabooses provide shelter for crew at the end of a train, who were formerly required in switching and shunting, keeping a lookout for load shifting, damag ...
at the end, downhill from Siding 4 to Beaver Cove. On the return trip, the locomotives were in the lead, but the rest of the train was not turned (the caboose was immediately behind the locomotive).
Equipment
Four
EMD SW1200
An EMD SW1200 is a 4 axle diesel switcher locomotive built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division between January 1954 and May 1966. Power is provided by an EMD 567C 12-cylinder engine which generates . Additional SW1200 production was complet ...
locomotives,
three of which had been rebuilt with Caterpillar engines (the fourth retained its original EMD engine and was kept in reserve) were modified with larger fuel tanks (to handle a nearly round trip) and with triple
headlights
A headlamp is a lamp attached to the front of a vehicle to illuminate the road ahead. Headlamps are also often called headlights, but in the most precise usage, ''headlamp'' is the term for the device itself and ''headlight'' is the term for ...
(middle, left, right) at both ends. They were delivered from EMD with dynamic brakes in their original incarnation (an unusual feature in an SW1200) in order to cope with the long descent from Woss to tidewater at Beaver Cove. In effect, these locomotives were converted from switchers to mainline or "road" locomotives.
Steam locomotive
A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...
#113 was operational as part of a
tourist railroad
A heritage railway or heritage railroad (US usage) is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period (or periods) i ...
from 1988 until 1995, it is now on static display at the railway's shops in the town of Woss.
Another steam locomotive, #112, has been cosmetically restored and is on static display in Beaver Cove.
Logs were loaded on a mixture of logging
flatcar
A flatcar (US) (also flat car, or flatbed) is a piece of rolling stock that consists of an open, flat deck mounted on a pair of trucks (US) or bogies (UK), one at each end containing four or six wheels. Occasionally, flat cars designed to carry ...
s and
skeleton car
A flatcar (US) (also flat car, or flatbed) is a piece of rolling stock that consists of an open, flat deck mounted on a pair of trucks (US) or bogies (UK), one at each end containing four or six wheels. Occasionally, flat cars designed to carry ...
s (no deck). There were about 400 cars in the fleet.
Cabooses were small centre-cab designs with flat deck at both ends.
Three
speeders dating from the 1950s were used for track maintenance.
References
External links
{{Commons category-inline, Englewood Railway
Western Forest Products
* A photo essay of the decommissioning of th
Englewood Railwayby Aidan Perret
* Video clips showing locomotives, loaded flatbed and skeleton log cars, caboose, speeder, #113
part 1part 2
Logging railways in Canada
Defunct British Columbia railways
Transport on Vancouver Island