End of CN's Newfoundland Railway. Unedited CBC footage.

News clip from 1988 about the end of CN's Newfoundland Railway. Shows retired locomotive engineer, Kevin MacDonald, on the train. This is unedited raw footage and may not have all the narration from the actual news clip. From CBC news. Not my footage only uploaded for educational/historical purposes.

[@Belleville197]

We destroyed our best infrastructure.

[@JS-jh4cy]

Same thing on Vancouver Island government stopped running the railroad and let it rot away

[@JS-jh4cy]

Now there are no buses since Greyhound went bankrupt in western Canada so everyone has to hitch hike or go buy another expensive old car to and pay more money for gas, unless you want to wait hours to charge an electric in far town before driving back out of the towns

[@iconofvril9025]

A little birdie tells me that they are planning to restore these rails and run freight on the island again. There were members of this project in CN's Winnipeg campus a few months ago

[@canadianmike711]

That's from 1994

[@vpfluke]

I was stationed at the U.S. Naval Base in Argentia in late 1965 and the whole of 1966. The Thrice weekly mixed train ran by the barracks. Mixed Trains would do a round trip to Argentia and the go up to Clarenville to do a r.t. and then back to St. John's. The Newfie Bullet (technically the "Caribou") ran from St Johns to Port aux Basques and had dining and sleeping cars. Argentia was also the terminus for the passenger ferries that ran along the South coast of Nfld and the boat passengers comprised the biggest number of passengers at Argentia. There were scheduled taxis that went the 90 miles to St John's in about 2 hours time vs the 5 hour journey by train.

[@alcopower5710]

Extremely sad 😞

[@bov634]

I wonder if they would've just left the railroad intact what could have been today with fuel prices raising. A new standard gauge railroad on the rock.

[@wavesnbikes]

Should've kept a segment of this treasure as a Tourist Heritage Railway. Did CN ever plan on Standard Gauging?

[@shnorth888]

Apparently it was looked at just after confederation but wasn't deemed done to the cost. Again in the 70's CN looked into it but the cost and time to do it wasnt worth it. Unfortunately the narrow gauge is what doomed the lines future.

[@wavesnbikes]

@@shnorth888 had it been standard gauged, would it still exist? What commodities would it carry?

[@shnorth888]

@@wavesnbikes Unknow if the re-gauging would've have extended the railroads life. CN probably wouldn't be running it anymore. selling it to a short line operator more than likely. As for commodities the Newfoundland Railway carried pulpwood and other wood products, newsprint, mining minerals, some oil was also hauled. Also some locally manufactured goods. However most goods were shipped in from Canada or the U.S.

[@marcleslac2413]

@@shnorth888 The only contender in my mind would be avondale,, but then it be one hell of a task

[@Militaria-pr9rj]

@@marcleslac2413 Avondale to Whitbourne would make for a fine run.

[@norbertshacklette]

In 1966 and again in 1968 I rode 2 round trips from Port aux Basques to St. John's and back. I have ridden in 47 states in the USA and the other 9 provinces in Canada. Nothing compared to the Newfie Bullet.

[@NxNWhiskey]

Shame to give that up for the highway. An option would be better. Bad trade.

[@G.I.N.N]

My uncles told me many stories of the train coming through GFW , They'd steal food from the box cars being shipped east . Times were tough ....Times are still tough tbh....

[@johnlanelli3968]

I love the Terra Transport logo.

[@shnorth888]

The arrows logo first appeared in 1976 on a VIA-CN brochure advertising round trip fares between Toronto and Montreal. The only difference was one arrow was red the other blue. Fast forward to the fall of 1979 and CN decided to create a subsidiary, TerraTransport, to run it's Newfoundland rail, truck and bus operations and they needed a distinct logo so someone remember the double arrows logo from a few years before and they adopted that.

[@tommyhatcher3399]

We're not the smartest but we can take a beating and turn it into a cheerful song.

[@haweater1555]

th-cam.com/video/abVKJtOjdL0/w-d-xo.html

[@MartinMiller1]

Very sad

[@RCAFpolarexpress]

THat is sooooo sad 😢😢

[@jamesstuart3346]

CBC at its best

[@youtuberube]

funny I had that exactl same thought when I watched this.

[@joshbakker7541]

You think things will be around forever until one day, transportation ministers screw it up.

[@PeterNGloor]

lousy subtitles. Beehives is writen Beethoven. Just don't click that button!!

[@jasperli]

They’re auto-captions, how good did you think they’d be?

[@STRANG3R30]

I love these old footages of trains that used to run throughout the country.