A few weekends ago I made my way over to the Railway Museum of British Columbia located in Squamish, BC. It houses some spectacular exhibits and is one of the two railway museums in lower mainland. I visited two other railway museums in British Columbia, one at Prince George and the other at Castlegar. Both were quite delightful experiences.
I love trains and did some multi day journeys purely for the fun of train travel like
5 day train journey from Toronto to Vancouver
and
75 hours in USA’s California Zephyr and Coast Starlight
When I first came to know about the existence of a Railway Museum in Squamish, my first question was, why in Squamish. I was in the mistaken belief that there were no railway lines north of Vancouver. I was wrong. There used to be a railway line running (for passengers) north from Vancouver till Prince George and beyond till Fort Nelson. (There is already a Via Rail line on Canadian National owned tracks, that connects Jasper to Prince George and Jasper to Vancouver but no passenger trains currently run from Vancouver to Prince George directly). Ah, railway line closures always makes me sad!
There are two parts to the Museum experience at Squamish. One is taking a ride in the operational trains. And the other is the stationary exhibits. There are 3 different train rides that can one can take. The first is a ‘normal’ train. There are a couple of coaches pulled by a locomotive. The locomotive model used depends on the availability on that particular day. They have multiple models that they use.
The second one is the minirail, which, the lady at the reception told me, was the favorite of most of the people.
Third one is the speeder train which is nothing but a maintenance trolley. Look at the second video at the bottom of the post. Of the three I enjoyed the minirail the most. This was the first time I was riding a minirail and it was absolute fun!
Then there are the stationary exhibits of which the Royal Hudson Locomotive 2860 is one of the grandest. Built for the Canadian Pacific Railway around the 1930s, its sheer size is just amazing to see. The height of the wheels almost matched my height. I looked around the locomotive and made my way to the driver’s compartment where I was greeted by a volunteer who happily answered my questions about the working and specs of the locomotive.
Fun fact: These series of Hudson locomotives are the only engines outside of the Great Britain that have been permitted the use of the designation ‘Royal’.
My second fav exhibit, in terms of beauty, was the Pullman Spirit carriage of Canadian Northern. The exterior of the carriage was exquisite.
Another brilliant exhibit was the 1912 built British Columbia Business Car which belonged to the Canadian Pacific (CP). The interiors were luxurious. There were 3 units inside, with the most spacious reserved for the Railway Executive, one for the assistant and one for the steward. One end was taken up by an elegant lounge and the other by beautiful wooden cupboards.
Then there were other specialized carriages like the troop sleeper car, a post office carriage and one used to ferry newly arrived immigrants from ports to inland.
I wrapped up my visit late afternoon after having my fill of the trains! Overall it was a fun experience!