Central Park Line

The Central Park Line is an electrified 4.6 mile railway line of the British Columbia Hydro Railway running from Trapp Yard, the railway's main marshalling yard, to Royal Oak Yard, connecting with the Canadian Pacific Railway at 14th Street Yard.

The Central Park Line is part of BC Hydro Railway's Westminster Division.

= History = The Central Park Line was opened on 8 October 1891 by the Westminster & Vancouver Tramway Company to provide interurban passenger service between New Westminster and Vancouver. In 1895, the W&VT was amalgamated with two other companies to form the Consolidated Railway & Light Company, which two years later became the British Columbia Electric Railway.

Initially electrified at 600V DC, the voltage was increased to 1500V DC in 1905, which remained the standard system for all BCER lines in the Lower Mainland other than the North Vancouver trams. Following the first electrification of the British Columbia Railway's Inter-Dominion Line, the 25kV 60Hz system was declared the national standard electrification system in 1931. The electrification was converted to the new national standard in 1932, but passenger service on the line was discontinued in 1962, when the portion of the line west of Rupert Street in Vancouver was closed. By 1966 the line had been cut back to Central Park Yard, and in 1982 everything west of Royal Oak Yard in Burnaby was closed in preparation for the conversion of the right-of-way west of there into the Central Line of the Greater Vancouver Metro.

= Services = The Central Park Line of today south of Edmonds Yard is quite busy, serving the northern part of the Scott Paper complex, the Empress Foods and Lucerne Dairies complex east of Edmonds Yard, and immediately south of there, the Metrovick BC complex opened in 2016 to build the 60000 series electric trainsets for the Greater Vancouver Metro.

= Route = A yellow background indicates that that section of line is electrified, italic text indicates a closed station or connection on an open section of line, and a grey background indicates a closed section of line.