Tilbury Line

The Tilbury Line is an electrified freight-only railway line of the Washington & British Columbia Railway (W&BC) running from Grandview Junction on BC Rail's Inter-Dominion Line to the Port of Vancouver. In all, the line's total length is 4.0 miles including all its branches; 2.2 miles are double tracked. It also connects to the Cascade Subdivision of the Canadian Pacific Railway's transcontinental mainline at Vanterm.

Ballantyne Yard is a sorting yard collecting cars from Vanterm, BC Sugar, Ballantyne Pier, and the Alliance Grain Terminal, assembling outbound trains. It is also the Vancouver interchange yard between the CPR and the W&BC.

The Burrard Inlet Line is Line 141 of the Lower Mainland Region of the W&BC; the Vanterm Branch is Line 1411, the Ballantyne Pier Branch is Line 14111, and the Grain Pier Branch is Line 14112.

= History = The Great Northern Railway acquired a direct connection between Seattle, Washington and Vancouver in 1906 when its subsidiary, the Seattle & Northern Railway opened a 21.5 mile extension to its line from Blaine, WA to Brownsville, with the S&N obtaining running rights over the Vancouver, Westminster & Yukon Railway's line from New Westminster to Vancouver. In 1909, the Great Northern was given permission by the Dominion government to absorb the Seattle & Northern into its own operations and to use the Great Northern name inside BC, but only along that line; other 'unofficial' subsidiaries of the GN like the New Westminster Southern and the Vancouver, Victoria & Eastern Railway were required to continue operating as separate companies. In 1910, the Great Northern opened the first section of the Burrard Inlet Line, from Grandview Junction to its Burrard Inlet Ferry Dock. In 1937, ownership of the line, along with the rest of the GN's BC lines, passed to the Washington & British Columbia Railway. Electrification was completed in 1939.

Prior to the opening of the Alaska Railroad's Fairbanks, Alaska - Whitehorse, Yukon line in 1980, much freight from the Great Northern and its successors (the Burlington Northern, later the Burlington Northern & Gulf) in the Continental US to Alaska was routed via the W&BC to the Burrard Inlet Ferry Dock, whence the GN operated a car ferry service to Seward, Alaska. The importance of this service has dropped drastically since then, leading to the discontinuation of the ferry in 1991. Since then, the Ferry Dock yard has been used as a storage yard.

Vanterm, the Vancouver Container Terminal, was opened in 1975 adjacent to the Ferry Dock, with the Dominion government via the W&BC a 1/3 owner; the W&BC serves the terminal, which since its expansion in the early 1990s handles 1 million TEUs annually, generating a significant amount of freight for the W&BC. W&BC also serves the adjacent BC Sugar Refinery, and Ballantyne Pier and the Alliance Grain Terminal just to the east of the sugar plant.

= Services = The Burrard Inlet Line is used exclusively for freight traffic, and is one of the busiest stretches of track anywhere in BC. Until 1942, the W&BC had an engine house with turntable at Grandview Junction; this was replaced by a two-stall engine house at GN Yard, which remains in use today.

= Route =

A yellow background indicates an electrified section.