Bill Dixon's Model Railway Page
The Nicola Valley Railway -
The Vancouver and Nicola Valley Railway -
I model the Nicola Valley Railway in HO scale.
Where is the NVR you ask? The real NVR was chartered ( The Charter
of the Nicola Valley Railway) in 1891 during a coal strike. It was to build from
Spences Bridge to the coal mines at Merritt and beyond. Alas the coal strike ended before the
railway was commenced and it fell afoul of the provisions in clause 25. of the charter.
But that was the real world, and we are working in an HO scale world. In my model railway
world, the NVR was built and has been kept alive as a CPR branch line tax write off.
The equipment is lettered after CPR practices
and except for a few steam engines, uses leased CPR diesel locomotives.
The Route of the railway is from Spences Bridge on the CPR to
Merritt. At Merritt the line splits into two lines; one terminating at Nicola and the other
terminating at the Brodie wye on the CPR.
Traffic is mainly lumber, coal, cattle and copper concentrate with all the other miscellaneous
supplies that towns and mines need. When the Fraser canyon is blocked, the line is host to
diverted CPR and CNR trains.
The freight car roster is designed but not all models exist
yet. Road number ranges have been allocated for cars of other model railways in the area. As the
freight car fleet has grown beyond the size one would expect for such a small railway, we have
had to cast our eyes to other railways, thus the following section on the Vancouver and Nicola
Valley Railway.
As the desire grew for a larger railway than could be modelled by the charter of the NVR, the
Vancouver and Nicola Valley Railway was found. This railway was chartered in 1908 to build
from the Nicola Valley to Vancouver.
The charter of the Vancouver and Nicola Valley
Railway
The history of The Vancouver and Nicola Valley Railway.
The route of The Vancouver and Nicola Valley Railway.
Bill Dixon's Railway Pages
Last Modified: August 24, 2003. Copyright 2000 W.R.Dixon.
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