Slower than a Speeding Bullet

“The Newfie Bullet”, the name of the train on the front of this post card,

was only carried by this train for the last 40 years of the life of the Newfoundland Railway. The Newfoundland Railway operated for a little over a century. From 1882-97 the trains ran over the portions of the railroad as it was slowly completed. The first passenger train across the entire line ran in June of 1898, connecting St. John’s on the east coast with Port aux Basques in the west. It took 28 hours for the completion of the journey. The final main line was 548 miles long from St. John's to Port aux Basques. However, many branch lines that sprang off the main made the operating trackage in the peak years (1915-31) 906 miles. The railroad was built to a narrow (3'6") gauge for reasons of economy, although it was never really economically viable on its own. The Newfoundland railway was the longest narrow gauge line in North America, and was regarded with particular affection by railway buffs by its gently mocking nickname, "the Newfie Bullet", which dates only from World War II. Although the first construction contract was signed in 1881 and construction did begin, it was not until 1890 and the advent of contractor Robert Gillespie Reid that the line extended beyond St. John’s and the Avalon Peninsula. The Reid family ran the railway until 1923, when operations were taken over by the Newfoundland government. Canadian National Railways assumed operations in 1949 under the Terms of Union between Newfoundland and Canada. It was not financially secure during most of its life (during World War II it actually showed a profit) and so it was decided to shut down the railroad as highway services increased. Regular passenger service ceased in July 1969, and the last freight ran in June 1988. The rails of the main line were removed by November of 1990. The railway always had a place in the heart of some Newfoundlanders because it gave Newfoundland a "new" interior region and its first towns "out of sight and sound of the sea," from Whitbourne to Deer Lake. It also gave the older population centres of the east coast an expanding hinterland. Like its North American neighbours, from 1898 Newfoundland had access to the west. Completion of the railway opened the west coast to further settlement and provided a tangible link with Canada. When I worked for UNICF, here in Edmonton, one of the volunteers came from Newfoundland. Her husband used to work for the Canadian National Railway in Newfoundland and as part of his retirement gifts they gave him a very small section of rail. He had died and she no longer wanted it. It now sits proudly in the garden in the front of our home. Boosters of the railway had long pointed to the line as a necessity for Newfoundland. Its construction was proposed as "the work of a country," a line that would lessen the island's historic dependence on the fishery and create a modern economy driven by land-based resources. However, Confederation meant that the financial burden was assumed by the taxpayers of Canada and by 1988 matters had come to the point where the Government of Canada sought to shut it down.

The post card was gifted to me by a co-worker at The Salvation Army. Prior to that, the post card was distributed by the company Supershot Photography out of Corner Brook, Newfoundland. All I could find about the photographer was his Facebook page.