Canadian Northern Pacific Railway

The Canadian Northern Pacific Railway (CNoPR) is a historic Canadian railway with a main line running between the Alberta–British Columbia border and Vancouver, British Columbia. It was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR). This railway existed mainly on paper, thus there were no cars or locomotives lettered as "Canadian Northern Pacific". As far as the public and most workers were concerned, it was just a part of the CNoR.

The CNoPR was incorporated in 1910. The last spike was driven at Basque, British Columbia, near Ashcroft, in January 1915. This event completed Canada's third transcontinental railway, which ran from Quebec City, Quebec, to Vancouver, British Columbia.

On Vancouver Island CNoP had a line that competed with the Esquimalt and Nanaimo rail line (Owned by CP at the time) but went a different route from Victoria. The route would go to Sooke (At the time Milnes Landing), through Leechtown, then pass the west side of Shawnigan Lake to Cowichan Lake. Another section of rail went further northwest to Kissinger . This line was for logging. on Dec 20, 1918 CNP (Along with Canadian Northern) was absorbed into the CNR.

Originally, the plan was to build the rail line from Victoria to Port Alberni for passenger and freight service. This included a Victoria to Patricia Bay line with a ferry service from Pat Bay to Port Mann (on the Fraser River in Surrey. In 1911 work had begun on the up-Island rail, construction was slow throughout the years due to issues. The Pat Bay line started construction in 1913 and was completed in 1916 and by 1917 the Patricia subsidiary from Victoria was opened for passenger service. Sometime that year, the V&S and CNP were linked at Bazan bay. In late 1918 the rail line was under the new crown corporation, the Canadian National Railway. The government at this time had no compulsion to provide a passenger service from Vancouver Island to the mainland, instead CN would serve freight on the island. The ferry that the ex-CNP ordered arrived that same year from Quebec. It went into refit and by 1919 the ferry was in service for the Patricia Bay line for freight. That same year passenger services ended on the Pat bay line, freight continued. The Victoria and Sidneys section from Bazan bay to Sidney became part of the CNP in 1919. By 1932 the car ferry SS Canora was temporarily withdrawn from service, two years later the Sidney Mill burned down. In 1935 the track is abandoned and removed.

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