Railway Saturday

On Saturday we took a walk through downtown and ended up at the Railway Coastal Museum!

The Railway Coastal Museum is housed in the Water St West train station, built in 1903. It tells the history of the Newfoundland Railway, from its creation in 1898 until its end in 1988.

When immigrants from England and Ireland started settling Newfoundland in the 1700s, the communities were centred around the fishery and located along the coast. Eventually, over 1000 fishing villages were settled and they relied on the sea for everything, including transportation; the communities were not connected overland at all. This is where the railway and coastal boat services came into play.

So many communities on the coast!

In 1880, the Newfoundland government decided to construct a railway halfway across the island, to ease the development of resources, reduce the isolation of communities and the dependence on the fishery. Unfortunately, various contracts fell through and the scope of work changed to span across the island, so it wasn't until Sir Robert Gillespie Reid finished building the line in 1898 that operations started.

Outside the museum (and former train station)

The exhibit takes you through the railway's history - when it was bought out by the Government of Newfoundland in the 1920s, its extensive use transporting troops and supplies during WWI and WWII, and its significance in the history of the island. There was a ton of information there, but these are a few interesting facts we learned from the exhibit:

- The railway had a total track length of 906 miles (1,458 km), which made it the longest narrow gauge railway system in North America.

- People often think about the railway going through the wilderness or countryside, but the trains also went right into St. John's. In the early 1900s, one railway line was located on what is now Empire Avenue and as a train was going along the track on its way to a station on Kings Bridge Road, it struck a cow and was derailed. Luckily, no one was injured. Except the cow.

- Finally, up until joining Canada, the Union Jack was the official flag of Newfoundland as it was part of the British Empire. Then a few years after Confederation, Newfoundland officially re-adopted it and the Union Jack remained the provincial flag of Newfoundland until 1980!

When Newfoundland joined Canada, in 1949, the Federal Government became responsible for operating Railway and Coastal Boat Services; the Newfoundland Railway became part of the Canadian National Railway. Even after some upgrades to the system, such as replacing steam locomotives with diesel-electrics, the annual deficits were too high to continue operations. In 1988, the railway closed, in exchange for Federal funding of the Provincial highway program. So that's why there are no trains or railways in Newfoundland anymore!

Elizabeth's grandfather was actually a telegraph operator with the railway and worked with them for his entire career. We looked him up in the database at the museum, but some of the information was wrong (as far as we know, he wasn't born in 1969), so we need to follow up with them later to update it.

Then after checking out everything inside the museum, we spent some time hanging out on the old train cars outside. We were lucky that Saturday was warmer and clearer than it's been lately.

On the way walking back to our apartment, we stopped off at the Magic Wok Eatery. It's a popular Chinese restaurant in St. John's that has been around for 20 years, but it the first time that either or us had been there. We had the Dinner for Two which was super tasty and we were both very full afterwards.

We thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon and had a great Something Saturday! Here are some more pictures: