Here is the latest newsletter installment of an image and quote from the museum’s award-winning book Watershed Moments – A Pictorial History of Courtenay and District.

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Photo credit: Girl Guides depart from Royston train station, 1928. Left to right: Gladys Idiens, Joyce Edwards, Margaret Dunn, Dot Waterfield, Mrs. Mary Greig, Ritsuko Uchiyama, Lynn Hilton. Photo: CDM 990.16.26. Page 158-159.

Photo caption: “The first E & N passenger train arrived in Courtenay on August 6, 1914. The August 13 Courtenay Review noted that the train “consisted of baggage and express cars and four coaches.” The trip from Victoria covered 139.7 miles, with the train averaging a speed of roughly twenty miles an hour.

This arrival of the E & N, combined with major expansion of industrial rail lines, strengthened camps and communities such as Union Bay, Royston, Miracle Beach, Cumberland and Headquarters over the next fifty years.” Page 128.