Southern Railway of Vancouver Island is projecting that once track upgrades are done they will be moving up to 22,000 car loads per year with customers on the Victoria and Port Alberni Subs. Good to hear, the last time the E&N moved that many cars, it was a CP Rail operation, in the 1980's. 2001, RailAmerica's last year that they ran to Port Alberni, they moved only 8000 carloads. Which was up 500 carloads from CP Rail's last year(1998). It'll be interesting to see if all that traffic materializes. RailAmerica's last year, 2005, they were down to about 800 car loads for that year.
The fact they're willing to put money up front, doing track upgrades, says a lot about leadership of the RR and it's parents. Boxcab E50
They are still having a hard time getting the provincial government on board. The Feds are willing to contribute funds to the restoration of the railway, but the ICF has to go through the province to get the funding.
From the E&N Railway yahoogroup: This is good news as the SRY can now bypass the delays from the CPR with traffic to and from the SVI. It will definately make rail on the island more competitive with trucks. Currently traffic to and from the SVI can take weeks to get from the SRY to the SVI as all traffic has to be interchanged with the CPR. While most cars from the SVI go east on the CPR, the cars from SRY are delivered to the CPR interchange in New Westminster, from there CP takes them to Coquitlam, where the cars are switched out, then hauled to Tilbury and loaded on the barge once a week. It can take weeks for a car for the SVI to get through Vancouver.
