Downtown Vancouver Yards

7109 (S-4 MLW 77590 7/1952) with idler (reacher) switching on car ferry lead. July 1980

7113 with a mixed consist of freight passing under CPR Pacific Region headquarters building. June 1976

1210 switching a cut of grain covered hoppers on Christmas Eve! December 24, 1986.

Leif Sorensen Collection

Baldwin yard engines everywhere! All new in original paint scheme. 7070 and 7069 at left.
7065 and two others in middle. Another hidden by a cut of cars on the scales at right in N Yard. 1948.

Centre Yard looking west from Cambrie Street bridge at Smythe Street 1959

Another view slightly different angle.

Looking east from Cambie Street bridge. Piggyback yard in center of photograph. CP Express to the left.

MLW S-3 yard engine pulling a passenger train through the Dunsmuir Tunnel from the station on the other side of downtown making its way to the Coach Yard for servicing. The bridge in the background is the old Georgia Street Viaduct. 1959

West end trackage shows the Vancouver Lulu Island, (VLI BCE), interchange on the left, and the Coach Yard on the right.
A close look at the VLI interchange shows the overhead 600 Volt power lines for the electric locomotives used by the
British Columbia Electric Railway. Mid-late 1950's.

An overview more or less of the west end of Drake Street and the Coach Yard. Looks to be taken from the south deck of the Granville Street Bridge and show the layout of track that, (from the bottom of the picture), come from the Kitsilano Trestle and up into the west end of the Coach Yard. Johnston Terminals is on the right side before getting into the Coach Yard. Late 1950's based on the number of “R” Cars being serviced. There is a string of cars with a Skyline Coach in the middle but no Park Car, so it may be the Dominion.

View of the back tracks of the Coach Yard, and you can see all the “R” Cars and other heavy weights serviced there at the time. After these cars were decommissioned they were stored in this location till the end of the Drake Street Coach Yard
in 1978 or so. They were in rough shape by that time.

Consist being turned on the wye at Drake Street shops. A similar method was used at
John Street coach yard in downtown Toronto where cars were turned on a loop around the roundhouse.
Power for train is sitting behind on shop track. 1411_1408
Yes, that is a steam locomotive too! Long-retired 3716 which would have a second life under various
BC Goverment tourism operations far more famous than its CPR freight hauling days. It still exists.

ENLARGE

Q Yard. Drake Street roundhouse in background at left. Looking west. Baldwin yard engine at right. 1970's

There are no cars in the Coach Yard, therefore likely 1980's. Just to the left of the Coach Yard itself you can see a building that at the time was home to the Wheel Lathe and Freight Claims. And a bit further to the left is the Stores building that also housed Marathon Realty. The old Cambie Street Bridge is in the background running over False Creek. The tracks that curve hard left go into the Centre Yard west end and also into the Yale Town industrial spur tracks.