The Thornton Tunnel (also known as Thornton Rail Tunnel) is a

freight railway Rail freight transport is the use of railways and trains to transport cargo as opposed to human passengers. A freight train, cargo train, or goods train is a group of freight cars (US) or goods wagons (International Union of Railways) hauled ...

tunnel A tunnel is an underground or undersea passageway. It is dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, or laid under water, and is usually completely enclosed except for the two portals common at each end, though there may be access and ve ...

Burnaby Burnaby is a city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada. Located in the centre of the Burrard Peninsula, it neighbours the City of Vancouver to the west, the District of North Vancouver across the confluence of the Burrard In ...

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

, running under the Willingdon Heights and Vancouver Heights neighbourhoods.

History

On April 29, 1965, the

Canadian National Railway The Canadian National Railway Company () is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN is Canada's largest railway, in terms of both revenue a ...

(CNR) publicly announced that it would undertake a CAD$27 million dollar infrastructure expansion project in the

Greater Vancouver Greater Vancouver, also known as Metro Vancouver, is the metropolitan area with its major urban centre being the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The term ''Greater Vancouver'' describes an area that is roughly coterminous with the r ...

area to handle new, out-of-province customers planning to use shipping terminals on the North Shore of the

Burrard Inlet Burrard Inlet () is a shallow-sided fjord in the northwestern Lower Mainland, British Columbia, Canada. Formed during the last Ice Age, it separates the City of Vancouver and the rest of the lowland Burrard Peninsula to the south from the coa ...

. It included the construction of a new

rail yard A rail yard, railway yard, railroad yard (US) or simply yard, is a series of Track (rail transport), tracks in a rail network for storing, sorting, or loading and unloading rail vehicles and locomotives. Yards have many tracks in parallel for k ...

in North Vancouver and doubling the size of a

marshalling yard A classification yard (American English, as well as the Canadian National Railway), marshalling yard (British, Hong Kong, Indian, and Australian English, and the former Canadian Pacific Railway) or shunting yard (Central Europe) is a railway y ...

Port Mann Port Mann townsite was created in 1911 in the municipality of Surrey, British Columbia. The new town was to adjoin the new railway yard and roundhouse forming the terminus of the new trans-national rail-line operated by Canadian Northern Railway. ...

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

to make it the CNR's primary yard in the

Lower Mainland The Lower Mainland is a geographic and cultural region of the mainland coast of British Columbia that generally comprises the regional districts of Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley. Home to approximately 3.05million people as of the 2021 ...

. In addition, construction would include a new CAD$8.5 million,

single-track railway A single-track railway is a railway where trains traveling in both directions share the same track. Single track is usually found on lesser-used rail lines, often branch lines, where the level of traffic is not high enough to justify the c ...

bridge over the Burrard Inlet, and a CAD$10 million, , north-south single-track railway tunnel in Northeast Vancouver from the new bridge to near the

Lougheed Highway Lougheed is an Irish variant of a surname of Scottish origins, meaning ''head of the lake''. Lougheed or Loughead may refer to: Places * Lougheed, Alberta, a Canadian village * Lougheed Island, Nunavut, Canada * Lougheed Highway, part of British ...

to connect directly with CNR's main line track. The entire project was expected to be completed by January 1970. The bridge would replace the original

Second Narrows Bridge The Second Narrows Rail Bridge is a Vertical-lift bridge, vertical-lift railway bridge that crosses the Burrard Inlet and connects Vancouver with the North Shore (Greater Vancouver), North Shore. The bridge's south end connects directly to the ...

, which CNR purchased a few months earlier for $1. The tunnel would allow CNR to bypass the existing, meandering route from the

Fraser River The Fraser River () is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain (Canada), Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of V ...

west through central Vancouver and east along the South Shore of the Burrard Inlet before crossing into North Vancouver. This change reduced the route length between the Fraser River Bridge and the Second Narrows Bridge by , most of which was along congested tracks owned by other railroads, and it would avoid CNR's rail yard near

downtown Vancouver Downtown Vancouver is the central business district and the city centre list of neighbourhoods in Vancouver, neighbourhood of Vancouver, Canada, on the northwestern shore of the Burrard Peninsula in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. ...

. To reduce the amount of bridge openings required for marine traffic, the deck of the new Second Narrows rail bridge was higher than the original bridge. However, this change meant that the new bridge and the north entrance of the tunnel were now higher than the tracks previously used to access the bridge from the South Shore, which meant that there would no longer be a direct connection between the main line tracks of the

Canadian Pacific Railway The Canadian Pacific Railway () , 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 Canadian Pacific Kansas City, Canadian Pacific Ka ...

(CPR) and the Second Narrows rail bridge. By March 1968, the cost of the entire project increased to CAD$32 million, and the tunnel portion now cost CAD$11 million, but diggers from both ends of the tunnel had broken through to complete the boring segment of construction. The rails in the tunnel were manufactured in

Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Manitoba. It is centred on the confluence of the Red River of the North, Red and Assiniboine River, Assiniboine rivers. , Winnipeg h ...

, where they were welded into eight and transported to the tunnel cross-country by freight rail. By August 1968, the entire tunnel was nearing completion. On May 6, 1969, the new bridge and tunnel opened for service. However, after several years the tunnel itself began to be regarded as a source of congestion. By 2018, the Second Narrows Bridge, the Thornton Tunnel, and the New Westminster Bridge were considered the three major bottlenecks in the Vancouver area for all railways.

Description

The tunnel is long, and it is a

. The maximum speed limit in the tunnel is . The tunnel is named after

Sir Henry Worth Thornton Sir Henry Worth Thornton, Order of the British Empire, KBE (November 6, 1871 – March 14, 1933) was a businessman. Thornton served as general superintendent of the Long Island Rail Road from 1911 to 1914, general manager of the Great Eastern Rai ...

, who was an early president of CNR. CNR designated the

branch line A branch line is a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line. Branch lines may serve one or more industries, or a city or town not located ...

containing the tunnel and bridge as the Thornton Branch. In the middle of the tunnel there is a fake house to cover up a ventilation shaft and fan systems to blend in a residential neighbourhood. It is located on the northeast corner of Frances Street and Ingleton Avenue, in Burnaby. The ventilation system previously cleared the exhaust from a passing train after 20 minutes so that the next train would have enough oxygen to safely enter the tunnel. An upgrade project, which would reduce the ventilation delay from 20 minutes down to 10 minutes, was completed in May 2022.

References

Railway tunnels in British Columbia Buildings and structures in Greater Vancouver Transport in Burnaby Tunnels in Greater Vancouver Canadian National Railway tunnels Tunnels completed in 1969 1969 establishments in British Columbia {{Bridges of Metro Vancouver