Royal BC Navy Railway Flotilla

The Royal British Columbia Navy Railway Flotilla (AAR reporting mark RBCN), marketing itself publicly as the RBCN Railway, is a branch of the Royal British Columbia Navy dedicated to the provision of rail transport on a network of 260 miles, the vast majority of it on Vancouver Island. Although as a branch of the Navy it is formally subordinate to the Ministry of Defence, but in operational matters it coordinates closely with the Ministry of Labour, Industry, and Railways. The RBCN Railway operates passenger and freight trains, as well as rail ferries between Vancouver Island and the central and north coast of the mainland.

Organisation
The Railway Flotilla is an operating branch of the Navy; it is fully a military organisation within the Navy chain of command, with all staff being sworn members of the Navy and undergo the same basic training as all other Navy personnel. However, as they are "hired" specifically for railway work, they are not subject to reassignment or transfer to other duties as other naval personnel are.

Officer ranks in the Railway Flotilla are identical to those of the rest of the Navy, but there is no rank equivalent to Midshipman; the officer commanding generally holds the rank of Commodore 2nd Class. Other ranks are listed in the table:

Some elements of naval tradition were adapted to the Railway Flotilla, such as the flying of White Ensigns: initially, when the Flotilla operated steam locomotives, this was an actual flag mounted on a post at the front left of the locomotive; since the introduction of diesel locomotives, the ensign is now painted on the sides of the cab. Some naval terminology was also adapted; for example, where other railways' locomotives have "road numbers" or "running numbers", in Railway Flotilla usage these are called "pennant numbers". Like ships, locomotives are commissioned and named, the name being prefixed with "HMBCL" - "Her (or His) Majesty's British Columbian Locomotive".

History
The Navy established the Railway Flotilla in 1927 to work the extensive trackage installed on the grounds of HMBCS Rainbow, the Navy's primary northern base located just south of Prince Rupert. A connection, called Navy Junction was built at a spot two miles north of Port Edward, from which a main line of six miles was built with branches to serve the various base facilities.

When the Navy began building a large new base, HMBCS Tyee, at Quatsino on the west side of Vancouver Island, it decided to undertake the construction of a railway line to the base from Campbell River, with a branch to Port Hardy, where a rail ferry pier would be built. To speed progress, the Navy opted to purchase the Nimpkish Valley Railway, a logging railway opened in 1917 with a mainline running from Woss to Kokish. The NVR was absorbed into the Railway Flotilla, with most of the company's employees joining the it; engineers, firemen, dispatchers and directors became commissioned officers, and other employees became ratings.

The acquisition of the NVR allowed for construction of the new line to proceed from four locations; the work was done with great speed, and the section from Port Hardy to Woss was completed in August 1929 and was immediately put into operation along with the rail ferry from Port Hardy to HMBCS Rainbow. At that point, the line north from Campbell River had reached Elk Bay; construction of the remaining section between to Woss was suspended for the winter; work resumed in April 1930, and was completed in September of the same year. The branch from Suquash to Quatsino was completed in 1932.

Although it had primarily been built to fulfill the needs of the Navy, the "Navy Railway", as it became known, quickly became a vital part of life on northern Vancouver Island as scheduled passenger and freight service was introduced in September 1930. The following spring, an agreement was made with the Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway, whereby an E&N sleeper from Victoria would be picked up by the Navy Railway in Campbell River and forwarded to Port Edward, whence the British Columbia Railway would take it to Prince Rupert. This twice-weekly service was the forerunner of today's Pacific Coast Limited.

The impact that the arrival of the railway to the North Island soon led the government to use it to further develop the region, and expansion quickly followed, with a 39-mile line from Steel Creek (just north of Woss) to Tahsis being opened in 1935, and two years later, a branch from Sara Lake, east of Quatsino Narrows on the Quatsino branch, to Port Alice. The opening of these lines led to the development of industry along them, notably gold and iron mines, fish packers, and sawmills; at Tahsis, an ore dock was built to export iron ore. In 1954, the line was extended from Port Alice to Neucel, a large cellulose factory that brought numerous jobs to the area.

HMBCS Rainbow
, with branches to a tank farm for fuel on the west side, a warehouse complex on the southeast side, and a cargo transfer dock on the northeast side of the southern peninsula of Kaien Island.

To connect the main base facilities to the secondary portion of the base on Lelu Island, a bascule bridge (specifically, a Scherzer-type rolling lift bridge with two opening sections) was built, with a total bridge length of 1,173 feet and a channel width of 250 feet. The bridge is used by both road and rail traffic, with the rails set in the pavement like streetcar track. On the east side of Lelu Island is a rail-served warehouse for ships' supplies; on the west side, the track ends on a long dock used for loading supply ships directly from the railcars.

The current bridge was built in 2002 to replace the original one built in 1927; it visually very similar to the original bridge, and the replacement took place in a somewhat unconventional fashion. The fixed portions of the bridge were upgraded first (strengthened and earthquake-proofed, with some elements completely replaced), whilst the lifting sections were fabricated by Dominion Bridge Co. Ltd. of Burnaby; these were shipped to Port Edward by ship. The lifting sections were designed to fit into the existing (but upgraded) fixed sections, and they were installed by crane over two days.

At the north end of HMBCS Rainbow there are two rail-served commercial facilities - a grain pier and a coal pier. Rail-served Navy facilities on the base include a