With the many disasters happening recently across Canada, including train derailments, this image came to mind, given to us by Christine Clark, the only daughter in the Edwin Clark and Christina Jane Campbell family, pioneers of Shirley district.
As everyone knows nowadays, it was the CNR line which became the Galloping Goose Trail, so popular with hikers today. The railway line which ran then from the outskirts of Victoria to Sooke Lake and the Cowichan Valley, was constructed just before, and during the First World War, so the line would have been barely completed at the time of this derailment, if Christine Clark’s marked date of 1915 is correct.
Built initially to haul logs from the uplands of the Sooke hills for milling in Victoria, and also milled lumber from the Cameron mill at Leechtown, the train was hauled by a coal-burning steam locomotive. The line also had a spur to Cowichan Bay, to enable the loading of vessels. By the 1960s, the main line from Leechtown was carrying poles, hauled by a diesel-powered locomotive. Even later, the line was used for hauling munitions to Department of National Defence lands at Rocky Point. The line was abandoned in 1979.
While most of the railway’s history was industrial, for a period between 1922 and 1932 there was a passenger car service from Victoria to Sooke Lake, a rare opportunity to travel into the region.
This derailment appears to have occurred on the curve between Meota Drive and Kirby Road, just prior to reaching Milne’s Landing Station, where it stood alongside Sooke River Road. The overturned boxcars appear to be loaded with milled lumber. In actual fact, the name of the line itself at that time was Canadian Northern Pacific, and it did not become part of the Canadian National Railway system until the federal government took it over in 1918.
While there were a number of minor incidents during the railway’s history, we are not aware of any derailment which caused loss of life. The greatest tragedy that we know of was the level crossing accident at Woodlands Road in 1941 which took the life of Sooke’s beloved blacksmith Lyall Sheilds.
Elida Peers is the historian with Sooke Region Museum.
