Remembering Cowichan’s Own ‘Galloping Goose’

Passenger rail on Vancouver Island has been in the news recently; in fact, on an off, it’s been in the news for over 10 years—ever since the E&N Railway discontinued its Dayliner service.

But it’s finally coming to the boil because of a court-ordered deadline to restore service or face relinquishing a stretch of its Victoria-Courtenay right-of-way to a mid-Island First Nation.

This would, in fact, be the death knell to an Island railway going back to 1886, other than, possibly, as has long been touted, being downsized to a commuter shortline in Victoria’s West Shore area.

But freight and passenger service as was originally the railway’s bread and butter would become history and the old grade and trestles, if many recreationists have their way, a hiking trail.

Next week, the Chronicles looks back at the golden era of passenger service on both the E&N and the Canadian National Railways in the Cowichan Valley.

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PHOTO: Today’s phenomenally popular and well-used Galloping Goose Trail in Saanich takes its name from the Cowichan Valley’s first self-propelled rail car that long predated the E&N’s famous Dayliners. —Courtesy Kaatza Museum