Comments on: On this day, August 13th, in 1886, Canadian prime minister John A. Macdonald drove the last spike of the Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway at Cliffside, then around milepost 48 from Nanaimo. Mileposts were reversed to run northward from Victoria after CP took over 1905-06-08, with Cliffside becoming milepost 25. In 1958, a stone cairn was constructed to commemorate the 1886-08-13 last spike ceremony. Ninety-two years after the last spike, on 1978-08-13 during a period of of optimism that CP could be persuaded to continue running E&N passenger service, a re-performance of the last spike ceremony was held with a surprisingly large number of general public attendees, and the northward passenger train (running Passenger Extra since it was a Sunday and the operating timetable had not been updated to reflect the 1978-07-28 introduction of Sunday service) paused briefly for the ceremony at a time (0911 PDT) astonishingly close to the the reported “shortly after 9:00 a.m.” of the original occasion, although the original was on Standard Time. Southward the same day, there was no crowd, allowing a composition including the cairn and the fresh CLIFFSIDE station name sign on the flagstop platform as CP 9067 + 9103 running as Passenger Extra South passed at 1621 PDT. http://www.railpictures.ca The BEST Canadian photos on the Internet, eh? Thu, 07 May 2026 18:15:44 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 By: Steamer http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=52678#comment-58321 Steamer Mon, 14 Aug 2023 03:39:30 +0000 http://www.railpictures.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/1978-08-13-1621pdt_no-2-eng-cp9067+9103-by-last-spike-cairn-and-92nd-anniversary-sign-at-cliffside_ken-perry_2400-dpi-1280x1024-pixels.jpg#comment-58321 Great shot Ken, hope to that pose in the future one day. Great shot Ken, hope to that pose in the future one day.

]]>