Thursday 30 December 2010

Fort Nelson Line, British Colombia, Canada

Fort Nelson is the northernmost extremity of BC Rail’s network in British Colombia. The line of roughly 400 km length was opened from Fort St John to Fort Nelson in 1971. There is very little population and therefore industry served by this line except at the two terminii.

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Here is the map of the entire route through sparsely populated British Colombia.

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The Fort Nelson railhead is at Muskwa, south of the Muskwa River. I do not know what industry or traffic sources are in the area, apart from recently closed timber processing plants.

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Near Muskwa is the Fort Nelson River shared single deck combined road and rail bridge.
Here is a Youtube clip of driving across the bridge.
Due to the very long length of this line, the lack of population of the area, the fact it was only built recently and loss of traffic from closed industries, plus recommendation of abandonment in the past, the line’s future must be rather precarious.