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Caption: McBride. What a beautiful station. The Grand Trunk came thru in 1913 and the station was built in 1919. In 1991 it became a Heritage site.
This community is located about 150 miles (240 KM) east of Prince George and it is abut the only civilization you see along the journey. (There is a "No gas for 200 km" sign along the highway) McBride is a division point, Fraser Sub to the west, and Tete Jaune Sub to the east. The building appears to retain its original purpose for being; it is a gathering point for the locals, and was quite busy when we stopped by. Nice coffee shop/restaurant on one side, a tourist bureau centre, and the west side was a fully stocked gift shop. A caboose is displayed on site, and we did witness a CN freight meet. And as a bonus, Canada Post recently issued a booklet of stamps featuring this station. There may still be some available.
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McBride is still a crew change point for all freight trains on this line. CN tried double sub/extended run operation on this territory from the late 1990s into the early 2010s but as traffic grew and congestion worsened you couldn’t reliably make it in 12 hours, so McBride was reinstated as a crew change point.
There is a really nice mural on the west side of the station, showing what the yard used to look like back in the steam era. Very little remains today, only the main, siding and single yard track shown in your photo are regularly used. The wye and back lead are still in place but are not regularly used, and the only local freight traffic is occasional carloads of road salt for the highway department.
The area between McBride and Prince George is indeed remote, VIA No. 5 and No. 6 still carried mail as of a few years ago as they are the only reliable access into a couple small settlements.
Thanks for the comments!! I did drive around the south side and noted that the wye was still there, albeit rusty.
Very nice indeed Mr. Mooney. Over the decades, have managed to travel on CN rails from St. John’s Nfld. to Vancouver BC, but never on the GTP from Jasper to Prince Rupert. So on my list “to do” is to ride VIA from Jasper to Prince Rupert, and am planning a trip on Rocky Mountaineer over ex-PGE/BCR from Vancouver to Prince George. Just how far west did you and “side kick” travel in Sept ? Must have been quite a road trip.
Many thanks for posting, John
Oh, it was quite the trip, John. The only problem with it is as I get older I need more recovery time when I get back home. We wandered all over the place, with Price George being the farthest point; covering 9,000 miles.