Thornton Tunnel

The Royal Hudson

by Eve Lazarus on March 19, 2022

Angus McIntyre took this photo of the Royal Hudson at Arbutus and Broadway in 1977 travelling to the US on a three-week promotional tour

The Royal Hudson travelling along the Arbutus corridor at Broadway. Angus McIntyre photo, 1977

Going South:

This photo of the Royal Hudson travelling along the Arbutus corridor at Broadway on March 20, 1977 is one of my favourite Angus McIntyre photos. If you’re a regular follower of my blog, you’ve already seen some of his wonderful early street photography. But it wasn’t until I was writing Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History that I did some digging to find out why locomotive 2860 was chugging its way from the old BC Hydro yards in Kitsilano across the border into Blaine.

Turns out that it was part of a three-week promotional tour spearheaded by Grace McCarthy, travel minister and Vancouver Mayor Jack Volrich. The steam engine hauled seven cars filled with BC artifacts. Because it was Queen Elizabeth’s silver jubilee, one of the cars had been turned into a Royal suite complete with life-sized waxworks of Her Majesty, Prince Philip and Prince Charles. Three other cars carried a variety of models, maps and posters of BC’s resource-based industries.

Royal Hudson on tour. Sacramento Bee, March 20, 1977

The Photo:

“I heard a steam whistle and I knew that something was going along the Kitsilano trestle. I could see smoke coming up from that area, so I got into my car and drove recklessly across Broadway, parked near Arbutus, got out of my car and took a grab shot. There was no time to set up,” says Angus

When Angus had a show of his photographs at the Baron Gallery in 2012, legendary photographer Fred Herzog attended. He bought a copy of Angus’s photo and told him that some of his best photos were grab shots.

The Royal Hudson exiting the south portal of the Thornton Tunnel. Angus McIntyre photo, 1975

History:

For 25 years, the Royal Hudson steam locomotive 2860 had a regular run from North Vancouver to Squamish.

That ended in 1999 when the engine’s boiler gave out. Aside from a couple of “appearances,” the engine is on display at the West Coast Railway Heritage Park in Squamish. The Arbutus corridor is now a fancy bike and pedestrian trail. Abe Van Oeveren tells me that the last train to run on the line was on May 31, 2001. “CPR 1237, affectionately known as ‘Queenie” lifted the last two empty malt hoppers from the Molson’s brewery by the Burrard Bridge.”

Royal Hudson meets American Freedom Train, Vancouver Sun 1975

On November 1, 1975 the Royal Hudson took 800 passengers on a trip from North Vancouver to Seattle for a meet-up with the stream-powered American Freedom Train, which was on a 21-month tour through 48 states. It was the first time a passenger train had crossed the new Second Narrows railroad bridge and travelled through the Thornton Tunnel.

The Fake House and the Thornton Tunnel

by Eve Lazarus on November 6, 2021

There is a fake house in Burnaby that has fooled even some of its closest neighbours since 1967. Rumours have spread that it’s everything from a government safe house to an animal crematorium, but the truth is far more interesting.

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History

South portal of the Thornton Tunnel. Angus McIntyre photo, 1975

The Fake House:

The house is actually a huge ventilation shaft that’s hidden in plain sight. It is set in a nicely landscaped garden, and sits about 45 metres above the CN tracks at the midpoint of the Thornton Tunnel. Instead of a kitchen and dining room, ventilation machines and very big fans operating inside. The tip-off is the metal “keep out” wrought-iron fence, the absence of windows and the concrete barriers where a front porch would typically be.

CN’s fake Burnaby house at the corner of Frances Street and Ingleton Avenue. Eve Lazarus photo, 2020

The Tunnel:

The Thornton Tunnel took CN two years to build. It opened in 1968. The tunnel is 3.4 kilometres long and runs from the south end of the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge, under Burnaby and comes out at Dawson Street behind some warehouses.

Larry Lundgren was a switchman for CN from 1967 to 1972 and frequently found himself stuck at the wrong end of the train after a 10 to 15 minute ride through the tunnel. “As sure as heck a ship would come along and the bridge span would be lifted and you’d be sitting in the caboose just gasping,” said Larry.

Entrance to Thornton Tunnel, built in 1968. Eve Lazarus photo, 2020

The Bridge:

Then, as now, marine traffic has the right-of-way and the wait could be up to 40 minutes for a train wanting to cross Burrard Inlet. Larry says when he worked for the railway it wouldn’t be unusual to take an 80-car coal train through the tunnel with a crew of four—two in the front and two in the back. “It was pretty hazardous because the engine is spewing stuff and there is only so much the fan could take out of there,” he says.

Nowadays, there are two crew members per train and they sit in the front. It takes up to 20 minutes to clear the exhaust so that there’s enough air for the occupants of the next train. That limits use of the tunnel to about two trains an hour. People who live above the tunnel tell me that you can hear a “clickety-clack” or a “banging” sound and feel the vibrations when the trains go through.

Southern portal of Thornton Tunnel, below Dawson Street. Eve Lazarus photo, 2020

Tags Angus McIntyre, Ironworkers Memorial Bridge, Thornton Tunnel

Overlynn: Burnaby’s most haunted mansion

by Eve Lazarus on October 30, 2021

Eve Lazarus with Amanda Quill, Greg Mansfield and CTV’s St John Alexander on the haunted staircase. October 2021

Earlier this month, St. John Alexander invited me to hang out at Overlynn, a Burnaby mansion for a CTV news Halloween segment. I spent an amazing Saturday with St. John, Greg Mansfield and Amanda Quill—two experienced ghost hunters.

Overlynn ca.1920. The four dormer attic windows are long gone and the conservatory was turned into a chapel for the Sisters of Charity of Halifax. Burnaby Archives photo.

Listen to Cold Case Canada podcast Episode 34

Charles Peter:

As the history geek in the group, I discovered that Overlynn, which is in Vancouver Heights, is part of North Burnaby. Around 1909 when the streetcar line was extended to Boundary Road, and the CPR was selling off Shaughnessy, Charles Peter, head of the Blue Ribbon Tea Business, a division of GF and J. Galt Company, thought that Vancouver Heights could become another exclusive subdivision for the rich.

Overlynn staircase. Eve Lazarus photo, October 2021

At the time, the average house cost $1,000 to build, but you had to spend at least $3,500 to buy into Vancouver Heights. Peter’s house was a model for what the rich could do. Designed by Samuel Maclure at a cost of $75,000, it was named Overlynn because you could look right over Burrard Inlet to North Vancouver’s Lynn Creek. The house took three years and was finished in 1912. It didn’t work though, the rich stayed in Vancouver.

The Sisters of Charity of Halifax:

The Peters family lived here until the late 1920s when the house sold to the Sisters of Charity of Halifax. The nuns ran Seton Academy, a private Catholic girls boarding and day school for the next 40 years.

We had all two and one-half storeys to ourselves. Greg and Amanda say the house may look empty but it’s brimming with paranormal activity. Thornton Tunnel which runs under North Burnaby, may be behind some bumps and shakes, but it can’t explain the swinging arm, the man who coughs or the little girl in the white dress who suddenly appears, and just as suddenly, disappears.

The Attic:

The stain-glassed windows, the elaborately tiled fireplaces and the wood paneled walls are just gorgeous, but the most interesting part of the house is the attic. You go through the servant’s quarters and up a narrow set of stairs until you get to a heavy metal door at the top.

What’s particularly creepy is that the locks are on the outside and this is where the girls must have slept. The floor is still covered in red and grey checkered lino, there is a bathroom with several sinks and a large room that likely served as a dormitory.

Attic bathroom. Eve Lazarus photo, October 2021

In 1970 the house and grounds were sold to the Action line housing society for $350,000. A tower was added, and it’s been used as seniors housing ever since.

The house received heritage designation in 1995.

Beneath Dark Waters: The Legacy of the Empress of Ireland Shipwreck by Eve Lazarus, coming April 2025. Preorder through Arsenal Pulp Press, or your favourite indie bookstore

“We slept in a long room located on the second floor, with a row of beds down each side. As I recall, there was a bathroom at one end of the room. I remember the nuns rag curling my hair after bath time,” says Maureen Whiteside (shown bottom row fourth from right).

Watch the CTV News Segment: Burnaby’s Haunted Overlynn Mansion

Also by St. John Alexander: The Vancouver Police museum – the city’s most haunted building?

Tags Blue Ribbon Tea, Charles J. Peters, G.F. and J. Galf Company, Overlynn, Samuel Maclure, Seton Academy, Sisters of Charity of Halifax, Thornton Tunnel, Vancouver Heights

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