What is in a Name?

In 1972 the Pacific Great Eastern Railway was renamed to the British

Columbia Railway. The picture on the front of this post card was taken in October of that same year in North Vancouver, British Columbia. The following article was gleaned from the pages of this wonderful website by Adam Burns, which is an excellent source of all knowledge railroad-wise: https://www.american-rails.com/pge.html I recommend that you visit it often.The Pacific Great Eastern Railway (PGE) was incorporated on February 27, 1912. The PGE was to be privately operated with funds coming from major American and Canadian investors. Initial plans saw the system connecting the major port of Vancouver along the Strait of Georgia with Prince George where a connection would be established with the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. The PGE, however, ran into money problems during 1915 when it defaulted on an interest payment and the government took over the property in 1918. it languished as an unwanted stepchild through World War II. The railroad's fortunes finally turned after 1949 when an effort to complete its original planned route began. On November 1, 1952, a train formally arrived in Prince George with an Alco RS3 bearing the shield "Hello! Prince George, We're Here." Four years later, on August 27, 1956, the PGE completed a connection to Vancouver, giving it a through route stretching 462.7 miles. During the 1960s the PGE saw more growth than it had experienced its entire half-century of operation when new construction connected the road to Fort Nelson, 334 miles north of Prince George. Along this main line spurs were also opened including one to Dawson Creek where an interchange was made with the Canadian National Railway. As mentioned in the first line of this article, during 1972 the PGE was renamed as the British Columbia Railway At its peak BC Rail covered 962 miles, including all main lines and branches. The Railroad initially relied mostly on natural resources such as wood products, ore, and agriculture. However, as the railroad was greatly expanded after World War II its freight was vastly diversified from interchange traffic with major connections (Milwaukee Road, Canadian National, Canadian Pacific, Great Northern, Northern Alberta Railways, Northern Pacific, British Columbia Hydro & Power Authority, and Union Pacific) to intermodal and general merchandise. After owning the railroad for more than 80 years the British Columbia government announced in the spring of 2003 that all property except the right-of-way would be sold to Canadian National, which formally occurred a year later, on July 15, 2004. Today, CN still leases the former Pacific Great Eastern/BC Rail system from the British Columbia government.

This post card was published by Mary Jayne's Raillroad Specialties, Inc. Her catalog number for this post card is up in the box for the postage stamp. It tells us that the post card was published December 14, 1985. I had the opportunity to correspond with her before she died. She was a lovely person. The photo was taken by Robert D. Turner