When the E&N Was for People

By ELIZABETH FORBES 

Victoria Daily Times

November 16, 1970.

Count me among the thousands of men and women in Victoria who have been expressing satisfaction at the Canadian Transport Commission decision to give the E and N Railway a chance for continued life. Not because I want to take a pot-shot at the CPR. Rather because, like so many Victorians, the E and N bulks large in the story of my teen and also my adult years.

I have nostalgic memories of a special commuters’ train that ran to Shawnigan Lake every summer weekend—going up early Saturday morning and returning on Sunday night.

Not just one small coach and engine, mind you, but four or five cars (hand-me-downs from the mainline of the CPR) hauled by a huffing and puffing steam engine.

That weekend special was always filled to overflowing, as business men and young office workers, high school and college students who had been batching at home during the week, joined their families at cottages and camps around the lake.

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Some got off where a short piece of double track allowed the regular trains to pass each other. There was a rugged path from there down the hill.

Others went as far as Cliffside and still others all the way to Shawnigan station proper, end of the line for the "weekend express."

I remember, too, during the last days of the Second World War and into the late 40s, how the little railway catered to an ever growing tourist trade, mostly from the United States.

There was a tire and gasoline shortage in the States at that time. So visitors from below the line came to Victoria without their cars, then continued on to Vancouver by way of the railroad to Nanaimo and the connecting boat to the mainland.

They also discovered what many in this city had discovered before them. That it was possible to travel to Shawnigan Lake or even to Duncan, have luncheon at one of several resort hotels, and return to Victoria the same day.

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Sometimes for a special outing friends would get together for a trip as far as Nanaimo.

In the spring perhaps, when the dogwood flowers starred the countryside or in the fall when the leaves had turned golden brown.

On the way we’d "O-o-h" and "A-a-h" as the train crossed over Niagara Canyon bridge, about 260 feet high and around 500 feet long (it too was a hand-me-down from the CPR mainline at Banff.)

There would be murmurs of excitement as we swayed around the many curves over Malahat Mountain. Invariably if there were Americans aboard the conductor would announce in a voice that carried from one end of the car to the other, "I’ll bet you’ve never seen a railroad with more curves than this one."

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Those same conductors—old-time railroaders every one—would, by pre-arrangement, let out and pick up hunters, fishermen and picnickers, almost anywhere along the line.

There was no dining car aboard. But Nanaimo was a meal stop. Here again it was an everyday occurrence for the conductor to hold the train a reasonable time for slow eaters to finish sandwich, pie and coffee.

Certainly the train was occasionally late into Victoria, but nobody seemed to mind.

Back in those days the E and N was a profitable undertaking. Some days as many as 20 trains were dispatched. There were at least 24 locomotives in the round houses. Freights, loaded with logs, coal or general goods, waited on sidings all along the way as passenger trains high-balled through.

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Into the bargain, along the right-of-way you’d find some of the finest scenery—sea, mountain, prairie and meadow in the Pacific northwest.

The scenery is still there. The high bridge still spans Niagara Canyon. The track still curves and curves again over Malahat Mountain. Potential to attract tourists is as great, if not greater, than back in the 40s.

Let’s hope the "breather" extended by CTC will prove this to be true and that the historic little railway will have many more years.