Northern BC pursues short line rail

Jun 3, 2026 | 4:21 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Prince George is one of the province’s rail hubs. It receives trains from all over the nation. But CN is about to end its lease of one small piece of track between Lillooet and Squamish. And that has caught the attention of Northern mayors in British Columbia.

“So it’s about 300 kilometres of line that we’re talking about right now, and we’re interested in it because the movement of people and the movement of goods is so important to the economies, not just of the communities directly surrounding the line, but also beyond on both the north and south sides of that,” explains Anna Duff with the Northern Development Initiative Trust.

The matter came up at the North Central Local Government Association’s annual general meeting recently – a resolution from the City of Prince George, looking for the “preservation and revitalization of the strategic provincial rail corridor,” citing the loss of the Squamish-Cariboo rail line …” would result in shippers being forced to use higher cost truck transportation, increased public highway maintantance, loss of passenger (tourist or commuter) rail opportunity, higher GHG emissions, loss of transportation redundancy affecting Western Canada.”

And Councillor Trudy Klassen is leading the charge for the city.

Short Track Rail

Northern BC pursues short line rail

54m ago

Performing Arts BC

Arts Festival in full swing

58m ago

labour unrest

Vanderhoof deal rejected, so workers threaten to strike

2h ago

“The thing that everyone relates to immediately First Nations municipalities, average everyday residents is the potential for for passenger rail. And that is something that, you know, so many of us have great memories of traveling to Vancouver on that train, and it’s something that needs to be brought back. How many people really want to drive ten 12 hours with their kids stuffed into their car to go see family in Vancouver on the weekend? Very few.”

But there is a very strong economic argument to be made.

“We like the redundancy to get down to the Lower Mainland, too,” says Duff. “We’ve seen it in the past. There’s atmospheric rivers, there’s wildfires, there’s all sorts of things that can be closing highways. And so to make sure that we have a little bit of redundancy to keep on moving goods between ourselves and Lower Mainland or vice versa.”

Proponents of the short track rail line say they are very close to making it a reality.

“The Minister of Transport, Minister Farnworth, has said publicly that the rail line will not be sold, and so that means it will not be sold for scrap as well, and that the that the rail bed and the rail line is a public asset,” explains Klassen. So that’s very good news. And we we have at least one rail company that has already done. They’re finished their due diligence and they’ve told us that they could actually be operational on the line by fall.”

CN’s lease of he line comes up in mid-July.

by Cheryl Jahn

Click here to report an error or typo in this article

Join Our Daily Email

Northern BC pursues short line rail

What's Trending