Submitted by: Submitted by clearangel88
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Category: Business and Industry
Date Submitted: 04/26/2011 11:34 PM
Christina Henderson December 13, 2010
ELM 4015 J. Murphy
Assignment 3
British Columbia Railway
The British Columbia Railway (BC Rail) was originally founded in 1912, as the Pacific Great Eastern Railway (PGE). The railway operated between 1912 and 2004 in the province of British Columbia, Canada. It operated 1,441 miles of track, and was the third largest railway in Canada. It was owned as a crown operation by the public from 1918 until 2004, and then was leased to Canadian National Railway for 990 years (1).24 miles of the track still remain in ownership by the BC Rail (2). In the 2009 annual report for the BC Rail Company, it stated that it was a commercial Crown company owned by the Province of British Columbia by 100% of its shares (2).
When the company originally opened under PGE, it had provided passenger services between Squamish and Quesnel, and then extended to Prince George and North Vancouver. It was recommend by the McKenzie Royal Commission in 1978 to eliminate passenger services, due to the $1 million profit loss year. Passenger service did officially end for the railway on October 31st, 2002. Its main function now is Freight services; with its main product being wood based (lumber, pulp, woodchips, etc.) Before the rail was leased to CN, it would transport over 120,000 carloads of wood products per year. For a short time between 1983 and 2003, it also transported coal from the Teck and Quintettle mines. The Quintettle min closed in 2000, with the Teck mine following in 2003 (1).
The rail uses locomotives in order to transport their goods throughout the providences. In earlier years, most of these were steam locomotives, of the 2-6-2, 2-8-0, and 2-8-2 wheel configurations. It also used a handful of gas powered cars, and received its first diesel one in June of 1948. Today the companies locomotives include the No. 2860 (leased to by Joe W. Hussey), and backups that included the No. 3716. The rail company also leased the No....