The Grand Forks Railway is a
shortline railway
:''Short Line is also one of the four railroads in the American version of the popular board game Monopoly, named after the Shore Fast Line, an interurban streetcar line.''
A shortline railroad is a small or mid-sized railroad company that oper ...
company operating in the
West Kootenay
The Kootenays or Kootenay ( ) is a region of southeastern British Columbia. It takes its name from the Kootenay River, which in turn was named for the Kutenai First Nations people.
Boundaries
The Kootenays are more or less defined by the Koot ...
region of southeastern
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, ...
.
Former operators
In
Grand Forks
Grand Forks is the third-largest city in the state of North Dakota (after Fargo and Bismarck) and the county seat of Grand Forks County. According to the 2020 census, the city's population was 59,166. Grand Forks, along with its twin city o ...
, a former north–south section of the Kettle Valley Lines (KVL) (the operating company for the Kettle River Valley Railway (KRVR) and the
Spokane and British Columbia Railway) both crossed and connected with the
Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) line near the north end of today's 5 St. The KRVR became the CP's
Kettle Valley Railway
The Kettle Valley Railway was a subsidiary of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) that operated across southern British Columbia, west of Midway running to Rock Creek, then north to Myra Canyon, down to Penticton over to Princeton, Coalmont, Br ...
. Although the former KRVR track north of this crossing no longer exists, it continues southwest almost to the south end of today's Cooper Rd.
The Pacific Abrasives & Supply yard is on the southeast corner of where the former KRVR crossed the former north–south
Great Northern Railway (GN) spur that accessed north and northwest of Grand Forks. This abrasives company has been shipping processed slag from the former Granby smelter for use in sandblasting or coating roofing tiles. At this crossing, the GN track north, and the KVL track west, were lifted long ago. GN was consolidated into the
Burlington Northern Railroad (BN) in 1970, which merged to become the
Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway
BNSF Railway is one of the largest freight railroads in North America. One of seven North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 35,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and nearly 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that ...
(BNSF) in 1996.
Since the Pacific Abrasives yard linked northeastward to the former CP track and southward to the
wye connecting with the east-west BNSF track, this yard formed an interchange between the two systems, but each had running rights beyond this point. After CP withdrew tracks to immediately west of
Castlegar in 1992, the company kept a
switcher at Grand Forks and train crews travelled from
Nelson
Nelson may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Nelson'' (1918 film), a historical film directed by Maurice Elvey
* ''Nelson'' (1926 film), a historical film directed by Walter Summers
* ''Nelson'' (opera), an opera by Lennox Berkeley to a lib ...
to move cars to/from/over the BN. At the time,
Pope & Talbot
Pope & Talbot, Inc. was a lumber company and shipping company founded by Andrew Jackson Pope and Frederic Talbot in 1849 in San Francisco, California. Pope and Talbot came to California in 1849 from East Machias, Maine. Pope & Talbot lumber comp ...
(sawmill), Canpar Industries (particle board), and several smaller customers used the service. However, CP found this arrangement uneconomical.
GFR operation
In 1993, primarily under the oversight of Pope & Talbot, GFR was formed to operate a short section of former CP line and the connecting sidings. In 2004,
Kettle Falls International Railway (KFR) replaced BNSF at the interchange. In 2008,
Interfor Corporation
Interfor Corporation is one of the largest lumber producers in the world. The company's sawmilling operations have a combined manufacturing capacity of over 3 billion board feet of lumber with sales to North America, Asia-Pacific and Europe. Inte ...
bought the Pope & Talbot operations in Canada.
GFR, totalling of track, may be the shortest shortline in Canada and possibly North America.
The lone
EMD SW8
The EMD SW8 is a diesel switcher locomotive manufactured by General Motors Electro-Motive Division and General Motors Diesel between September 1950 and February 1954. Power is supplied by an EMD 567B 8-cylinder engine, for a total of . A tot ...
locomotive GFR 6703, which was acquired from CP in 1993, was replaced in 2019 by a GATX Rail Locomotive Group SW1000 (GMTX 86).
In 2020, KFR parent,
OmniTRAX
OmniTRAX, Inc. is a transportation and transportation infrastructure holding company based in Denver, Colorado, in the United States. It primarily owns or operates railroads, with a network of 25 regional and shortline railroads in 12 U.S. state ...
, announced the planned closure of the Grand Forks–
Laurier section of the KFR line within three years. A similar proposal in 2008 did not eventuate. Since GFR is disinterested in assuming this operation, a closure would also shut down the GFR.
See also
Footnotes
References
*
{{Canada railways
British Columbia railways
Railway companies established in 1992
1992 establishments in British Columbia