— Table of Contents —
- GTPR Arrives In Wainwright
- Trains Begin Rolling
- The Early Years
- Canadian National Railways Take Over
- Fire Destroys the GTPR Station
- Wainwright Gets a New Station
- George VI Royal Tour
- Buffalo “King” Goes to New York
- Next Generation Technology
- Last of the Steam Locomotives
- Elizabeth II Royal Tour
- The Changing Face of Rail Service
- End One Era, Begin Another
The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway went into receivership on March 7, 1919 and was assigned to the Canadian National Railways for operation on July 12, 1920.
The March 31, 1920 Wainwright Star Chronicle lists S.T. Denny as the new proprietor of the G.T.P. Restaurant.
The first notation of a derailment in the area was in the March 16, 1921 Star Chronicle. Apparently a broken arch bar on a freight car truck caused a spill in the yards.
Damage was done to the station at Edgerton in mid February of 1922, when a snowplow tried to pass the station with its wings open and flanger blade down. The platform was torn up and nearly all windows on the trackside of the station were broken.
On October 29, 1924 fire destroyed the station at Fabyan. It was replaced with a Canadian National 4th Class Station the following year.
In January 1925 two carloads of oil from B.P. Well #4 were shipped from Wainwright to Canadian National at McBride, B.C. for testing in oil-fired locomotives in the mountains. The shipment of 5000 gallons of oil is the first reported shipment of Wainwright oil by rail. Testing showed that the oil burning locomotives operated at 50 miles per hour at a cost of 2 cents per mile.
In 1926 Canadian National began running “silk trains.” Raw silk was loaded into refrigerated cars at Vancouver and the trains ran on a priority schedule to mills in Eastern Canada and the United States. These trains were continuously breaking speed records and have been known to make the trip from Edmonton to Wainwright in 90 minutes.
