Last Run, Nakusp & Slocan Railway, 20 December 1988

A branch of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), the Nakusp & Slocan Railway operated from 1894 until 1988. Originally running 58.6 km (36.4 mi) from Nakusp to Three Forks via Rosebery, the railway was soon extended to Sandon, and during the 1910s and 1920s also operated on the former Kaslo & Slocan rail grade. While the original purpose of the railway was to ship ore from the mines of the Slocan to the outside world via Nakusp, it was the local forest industry that would grow to use the railway most. By the 1950s, passenger service had ceased, and the 1955 Carpenter Creek flood truncated the N&S’ run to between Nakusp and Rosebery. By the 1980s, the N&S was only running once a week. After decades of lobbying to abandon the route, the CPR was given the go-ahead to close the route in 1988. All tracks and ties were removed the following year, leaving behind the the modern Nakusp & Slocan Rail Trail. Part of the right-of-way was also used for the construction of the Highway 6 truck route around the north edge of Nakusp in 2000.
This camcorder footage recorded by ALHS president Milton Parent is in two distinct parts. The first two-third of the video is footage of the actual last freight run of the N&S as it carries a load of log poles away from the Nakusp poleyard with a small group of onlookers seeing off the train. The second portion is from 1989, showing CPR personnel removing the tracks themselves from the right-of-way in west Nakusp, definitively putting an end to the era of rail transportation in the Arrow Lakes.
Timestamps:
0:00 Overview of railbed at Nakusp poleyard
2:10 Preparing the final run
4:33 Train meets crowd at Nakusp station, Canyon Road
8:32 Train leaves Nakusp for final time
12:01 Last run through Brouse
15:21 Train approaches Summit Lake
17:08 Removing tracks in west Nakusp, 1989
Browse through hundreds of Nakusp & Slocan Railway photographs on the Arrow Lakes Historical Society website at alhs-archives.com/keyword/nak...