Excursion Services
The railway's best-known excursion service was its Royal Hudson excursion service, which was the only regularly scheduled steam excursion service on mainline trackage in North America. Excursion service started on June 20, 1974, running between North Vancouver and Squamish. By the end of the first season 47,295 passengers had been carried. The Royal Hudson would become one of British Columbia's primary tourist attractions. It operated between May and October. It was cancelled at the end of the 2001 tourist season.
Two other excursion services were introduced by BC Rail in 1997 and 2001. In 1997, BC Rail introduced the Pacific Starlight dinner train, which ran in evenings between May and October between North Vancouver and Porteau Cove. In 2001, BC Rail introduced the Whistler Northwind, a luxury excursion train that ran between May and October, northbound from North Vancouver to Prince George or southbound from Prince George to Whistler. The train used several custom-designed dome cars. Both services were discontinued at the end of the 2002 season along with BC Rail's passenger service.
Historically, and discontinued in the 1960s, the railway at one time operated open-top observation cars all the way from North Vancouver to Lillooet and sometimes beyond.
A series of lodges of varying quality grew up along the railway, drawing on weekend tourist excursions from Vancouver via the MV Brittania steamer service to Squamish. The most famous of these was Rainbow Lodge at Whistler, then called Alta Lake, but others were at Birken Lake, Whispering Falls, D'Arcy, Ponderosa, McGillivray Falls, Seton Portage, the Bridge River townsite (where there was a first-class hotel serving mining and hydro executives and their guests), Shalalth, Retaskit and at Craig Lodge near Lillooet. The last-named was a swank tennis resort, its attraction being the extremely arid, sunny climate and the waters of Seton Lake.
While BC Rail no longer operates the Excursion services, it did lease out its line to Rocky Mountaineer Vacations to use, operating two services over the former BC Rail route. The Whistler Sea to Sky Climb operates between Vancouver and Whistler, which feature an observation car similar to the historical open-top car. The Rainforest to Gold Rush train operates north from Whistler via Prince George to Jasper. Both services are exclusively tourist-oriented and do not make local stops nor accept local-area travellers with fares significantly higher than former BCR passenger service rates. The West Coast Railway Association also returned the Royal Hudson #2860 to service during 2006.
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