It has now been 10 years since the last train used the E&N railway on Vancouver Island.
A federal petition to the House of Commons closed today with a total of 7,556 signatures in favour of reinstating the E&N’s passenger and freight train services.
The petition was initiated by Warren Skaalrud, a Department of Defence worker and resident of Shawnigan Lake.
“Every signature is another voice, and proof in your inbox that you stood on the right side of history for Vancouver Island’s future where people keep coming, development keeps happening, and our highways are continuously more congested and prone to shutdowns,” Skaalrud said in a social media post regarding the future of the E&N.
He says by having an active rail option, along with the trails that follow the E&N, people who don’t drive will have increased access to the island in an environmentally friendly and accessible way.
Plus, he says that it will help move goods around the island when emergencies shut down roadways.
“The $37 billion economy on Vancouver Island needs it for freight resiliency and as an emergency route and to bring in Freight revenue to maintain the tracks into the future,” said Skaalrud.
The island corridor stretches from Victoria to Courtney and out to Port Alberni with connections in every major municipality along the way and has not been operational since 2014 for freight service and 2011 for passenger service.
Since then the non-profit Island Corridor Foundation—which is made up of 14 First Nations and five island regional districts—has managed and maintained the railway.
The petition called for the Government of Canada to wok with First Nations along the island corridor to reconcile and address their concerns with the E&N railway being reinstated.
Skaalrud and the 7,555 others who signed the petition believe that $1 billion in funding from multiple levels of government would be sufficient to reimplement the train as part of the island’s public transit system.
They want this funding to bring passenger and freight transportation back to the island.
The petition also calls for the Island Corridor Foundation to be a partner in the project to represent Vancouver Island’s public interest.
Related:
Last year, the Island Corridor Foundation was fighting to save the fate of the railway as a federal vote to either dismantle the railway or reinstate it came about because the Snaw-Naw-As First Nation petitioned to have a portion of their land returned to them that the railway crossed through.
They won the vote and had their land returned. Since that time the Province has been both trying to return land to other First Nations whose land was used for the E&N, while also attempting to garner support for the railway’s reinstatement—especially since the atmospheric river of 2021 wiped out a portion of the Malahat.
What are your thoughts on the E&N? Do you support the idea of reinstating it or do you think it would go unused as it did prior to its initial closure?
Let us know in the comments!
