I noticed a little sign pointing toward the upper end of Squamish claiming that there was a train museum up the way. Since I was footloose and fancy free riding my motorcycle through British Columbia, I decided to follow the signs and figure out what all the hubbub was about.
It turns out that there is a wonderful railway museum titled the West Coast Railway Heritage Park in Squamish that has a really wonderful and interesting collection of historical engines and rolling stock.
This is the Royal Hudson 2860 locomotive that once pulled a train with the royal family aboard across part of Canada. It used to see regular service pulling special trains up until a few years ago. Now it is waiting for an overhaul before it can return to periodic service.
Back when this engine was new, Canada Pacific really did span the world.
Here’s an old Canadian Pacific parlor car that someone who had a lot of wealth or prestige rode in long ago.
In another building, there was an assortment of interesting old cars and a very old railway carriage.
Outside there are a pile of different mostly passenger carriages of different passenger services that no longer operate in western Canada.
There were some pretty neat snow plows, too.
This was a baggage car for the West Coast Railway. Now it’s sitting in the back lot.
Here’s Canadian Pacific 6503.
This is a mail car from the Pacific Great Eastern Railway which later became BC Rail before being taken over by CN.
A Canadian Northern passenger car.
Most of the cars and many of the locomotives are open and you’re free to walk through them to check things out.
Looking down the line of forgotten cars and locomotives.
I think this was part of a snow plow at some point. The wings come out from the sides to push snow back from the rails.
Yet another snow plow. This was in front of the car with the wings.
A bunch of locomotives and cars lined up for people to climb around on.
The Mac Norris station was pulled into the museum grounds and restored for people to check out.
The turntable behind the roundhouse so they can move cars and locomotives in and out. There are a lot of unfilled slots waiting for new donations or restorations.
Here’s that big Canadian Pacific 4069 diesel engine. They had it setup so you could walk around inside the engine.
Here is the diesel power plant in the locomotive. I think they might take this engine and its train of passenger cars out for the occasional excursion. Everything seems to be in order and I bet this engine would start up if someone wanted to run it.
Inside the cab of the engine. It has all of the modern radios and controls in it ready to go.