Throwback Thursday: Short-Lived Short Line

Okanagan Valley Railway train 1025 North is about to pull out of the yard at Vernon, BC on August 11, 2002.

By Peter Mumby.

Short Line railways often come and go as on-line industries ebb and flow.  Consider today's featured line, the Okanagan Valley Railway Company (reporting mark OKAN).  Under the OmniTRAX umbrella, this company operated the former CP Okanagan Subdivision between Vernon, BC, and the CP interchange at Sicamous on the Shuswap Subdivision.  Business commenced on Nov. 22, 1998 and the loss of its major customer resulted in its shut-down on Sept. 21, 2009. 

Both locomotives in today's photo show evidence of having been assigned to other lines in the OmniTRAX network.  OKAN 1025, a GP10 of Illinois Central heritage, is lettered "Central Kansas Railway" while carrying a Carleton Trail Railway maple leaf logo.  GP20E 2506 began life as SP 7216.  It, too, is lettered "Central Kansas Railway," although it sports a Hudson Bay Railway logo.