Arrow Lakes Line

The Arrow Lakes Line is a 34.5 mile railway line of the British Columbia Railway (BC Rail) running from Nakusp to Silverton; there is a rail ferry connection to Slocan City on the Slocan Lake Line.

The Arrow Lakes Line is Line 53 of BC Rail's Kootenay Region.

History
Rail service in the Arrow Lakes region began in 1892 with the opening of two railway lines: the Nakusp & Slocan Railway's line from Nakusp to Sandon, and the Columbia & Kootenay Railway's (C&K) Slocan City–South Slocan line, which connected to the C&K's Castlegar–Nelson line. To link these two new lines, a rail ferry service was introduced between Slocan City and Rosebery on the N&S line. A year later, when the Canadian Pacific Railway opened its Blaenau–Arrowhead line, the N&S inaugurated a rail ferry between Nakusp and Arrowhead. Not only did this allow for the movement of silver from Sandon both north the the CPR or south to the C&K and the United States, but it also created a direct north–south connection between Blaenau and Nelson and Castlegar. By 1896 the opening of the Columbia & Western Railway's Castlegar–Trail line, and by the turn of the century the C&W had reached Midway in the heart of the Boundary Country, with the N&S and the Arrow Lakes rail ferries playing a vital role in that artery.

A second railway reached Sandon in 1894, when the Kaslo & Slocan Railway (K&S) opened its narrow-gauge line to there from Kaslo, with a rail ferry service from Kaslo to Balfour to reach the Kootenay Railway's Nelson–Balfour line; three years later, the K&S opened a 3 mile branch to Cody. The opening of the British Columbia Southern Railway from Cranbrook to Kootenay Landing in 1899 led to the inauguration of a ferry from Kaslo to Kootenay Landing as well. In the same year, the Great Northern Railway bought a controlling interest in the K&S and in 1900 began a rail ferry service from Kaslo to Kuskonook, which the GN-owned Bedlington & Nelson Railway reached from Bedlington on the BC–US border, where it connected to the Kootenai Valley Railroad to Bonners Ferry, Idaho. A further rail ferry route was opened in 1902 to Lardo, after the CPR opened a line between Lardo and Gerrard.

Competition in the area between the Great Northern interests on the one hand and CPR, C&K and other BC interests on the other was fierce in the first decade of the 20th century. In 1901, the C&K acquired part of the Kootenay Railway in order to fund the line's conversion to standard gauge, to allow traffic from Cranbrook and points east to move to Nelson and points west without needing to be cross-loaded. The GN suffered a serious setback towards the end of the decade, when major slides east of Kaslo forced the closure of the K&S line beyond McGuigan, preventing the shipment of silver from Sandon and Cody to Kaslo. Then, forest fires in 1910 wiped out several major mines, forcing a further cutback of the K&S line to Sproules. In 1911, the GN finally gave up on the Sandon front, abandoning the Kaslo & Slocan Railway in 1911.

Conversely, the Columbia & Kootenay Railway proved very profitable, and by the beginning of the second decade of the 20th century it was in a financial position strong enough to allow itself to expand by buying both the Nakusp & Slocan, and the Kootenay Railway in 1912. Further, it took over the abandoned Kaslo & Slocan, rebuilding it as a standard gauge railway all the way to Sandon, and creating a connection between the N&S and K&S lines at Parapet. This allowed for direct movement of freight between Blaenau in the north and Creston and Cranbrook in the southeast, via Nakusp and Kaslo, without the need to transfer cargo from one car to another several times.

By the middle of the 'teens the Columbia & Kootenay Railway had become the dominant power in transportation in the western Kootenays, with the Nakusp–Kaslo section being a key linchpin of the network; the C&K's lines in 1915 ran Castlegar–South Slocan–Nelson with a branch to Balfour, with ferry service to Kootenay Landing and Lardo on the CPR (which had taken over the BC Southern in 1910) and to Kuskonook on the B&N, connections at Castlegar to the Columbia & Western's Rossland–Midway line and to the Kootenay & Pend Oreille Valley Railway (giving a direct connection to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho) as well as a connection to the Great Northern at Nelson; South Slocan - Slocan with ferry service to Rosebery; and Kaslo–Rosebery–Nakusp with a branch to Sandon, with a ferry from Nakusp to Arrowhead on the CPR. In 1921, the GN absorbed the Bedlington & Nelson Railway and the year after, extended the line north from Kuskonook to Kootenay Bay and the Kaslo ferry terminus was moved there, cutting the distance to less than half; this service continued after the establishment of the Washington & British Columbia Railway in 1937.

The C&K did very well through the rest of that decade and the beginning of the 1920s, but the Great Depression hit the company hard, and in 1931 it was taken over by the Kettle Valley Railway, under which the Nakusp–Kaslo line, including the branch to Sandon, became the Nakusp Subdivision. Until 1932 the CPR's Lardo Subdivision was connected to Kaslo via ferry from Lardo, after the extension from Gerrard to Beaton was completed that year, the Kaslo ferry was discontinued, replaced by a ferry from Beaton to Arrowhead.

The year 1955 was another year of major change for the Arrow Lakes railways, as major flooding in 1955 forced the abandonment of the entire branch from Parapet to Sandon, and of the main line from Giegerich to Kaslo. Despite the closure of the line from Kaslo to Giegerich, local rail service in Kaslo as far as South Fork was maintained, with the Balfour–Kaslo rail ferry, which had been discontinued in 1912, being reinstated, in addition to keeping the Kootenay Bay ferry run operational. No equipment was stationed at Kaslo after 1955; instead, a locomotive sailed on the ferry with its train. Later that year, the KVR was absorbed by the British Columbia Railway, which named the remaining portion of the line, running Nakusp–Rosebery–Zincton, the Arrow Lakes Line.

Because of the importance of the Zincton and Rambler-Cariboo mines, the line from Rosebery to Zincton was kept open, but seeing only freight service. In 1968, the construction of the Keenleyside Dam forced the closure of the original Nakusp Station, and its facilities were relocated to the site of Candev Spur, which was renamed Nakusp Station at that time; the mileposts were also relocated at the same time. The Rambler-Cariboo Mine was closed in 1977, and when the Lucky Jim Mine at Zincton was closed in 1981, the entire line from Rosebery to Zincton was abandoned, leaving only the 27.6 mile Nakusp–Rosebery section operational - less than half of what had, at its peak, been a network of over 66 miles.

The 1980s saw the closure of a number of rail lines in the Kootenays, leading to a public outcry that led to a positive outcome, with the Dominion government passing legislation in 1992 declaring the railways to be of national strategic interest, effectively banning the closure of further railway lines, and initiating large-scale investment in the modernisation of BC's railways through the 1990s and 2000s. A corollary, which was met with approval from environmentalist circles, was the passing of a law in 1994 banning the use of road transport for movement of freight over distances greater than 150 km between points where railway service is available.

One of the results of the 1992 law was the proposal to construct an extension of the line from Rosebery all the way south to Slocan City,

which would eliminate the need for the ferry service entirely. However, due to the complete absence of any settlement or industry over the roughly 13 miles between Slocan City and Silverton, the expense of building this segment led to the rejection of its construction by HMDG in 1999 and 2003. However, in 2013, HMDG passed a bill allocating funds to begin preliminary survey work and feasibility study for an extension south as far as Silverton. Completed in 2016, the report was found favourable, and in 2017 HMDG authorised funds to undertake detailed surveying of the less than four miles of new right of way needed to reach Silverton, as a portion of the original right-of-way south from Rosebery is to be restored. This work was completed in 2019. In 2018, before the detailed survey work had been completed, funds were secured to build the extension; construction began in May 2020, and the extension was opened on 17 December 2020. However, the rail ferry continues to operate to Rosebery; the northern terminus of the ferry will be moved to Silverton in April 2021, when the new ferry dock will be completed.

Freight
Freight traffic on this line is relatively light, with one weekly wayfreight bringing goods from Slocan City for local use.

Passenger
The various categories of passenger service are defined by the Ministry of Labour, Industry & Railways in conjunction with the Ministry of Transport & Communications; these categories are applicable to and used by all railways providing passenger service in British Columbia. Like all other railways in BC, ticket prices for BC Rail passenger trains are based on the Ministry's Schedule of Railway Fares.

Route
• - Local stop | - No passenger service