Harewood's Railway Roots
- Feb 20
- 3 min read
Updated: Feb 20
February 20, 2026
If you’ve ever walked or biked Nanaimo’s E&N Trail and felt like you were moving through a hidden layer of the city’s history – you were.
The rail corridor that people casually call “the E&N” is part of a much bigger Vancouver Island story: coal, communities, contested land deals, and the long push to connect the Island by rail.
This great video by the History of British Columbia YouTube channel explains the fascinating History of the E&N Railway.
Harewood’s Rail Roots
Long before the modern conversation about restoring passenger service, Harewood’s early coal ambitions were already shaping railway plans.
During the 1870s, a 2.14-mile aerial tramway was built from the Harewood Mine to the Cameron Island wharves to haul coal for shipping. Later, a standard-gauge railway connected the mines to the main lines at Chase River.
In the 1860s, the Harewood Coal Mining Company created a Harewood Railway Company to propose a rail connection linking Nanaimo/Departure Bay to the Harewood coalfields.
The original plan stalled, requiring a time extension in 1867. The lasting result was an industrial tramway connection eventually completed by the Harewood Colliery Company, in which Robert Dunsmuir was a significant member.
Rail planning around Harewood didn’t stop there. Nanaimo historical transcripts describe an 1864 surveyed (but never built) railway route intended to reach up past the Millstone River and Quarterway into Harewood.
Old newspaper headlines from 1876 editions of The Nanaimo Free Press contain little lightning-bolt details that capture the era: “Two locomotives of 10-ton hauling power tested at Wellington” – and then a month later, “Locomotives replaced mules at Wellington”.
The New Douglas Mine by Park Avenue School
The New Douglas Mine was opened in 1917 at Harewood Ridge, in the east bank of the Chase River near the end of Eighth Street – and coal from the tunnel was hauled up the bank and dumped into bunkers on the flat land behind Park Avenue School.
From those bunkers it was loaded into railway cars and pulled by locomotive on a track that ran along Harewood’s eastern boundary to Stockett Junction, where it tied into the E&N Railway. From there it could be moved on to coal wharves at the No. 1 Mine on the Nanaimo waterfront.
Stockett Junction was a key rail wye – a triangle formation of tracks where trains can turn around – located where Harewood meets Chase River, named for T.R. Stockett (a Western Fuel/coal-company manager), and it functioned as the connection point between local mine trackage and the E&N mainline.
The E&N Trail Today: A Walk Through History
Today, that historic rail alignment is also one of Nanaimo’s most popular multi-use routes. The City of Nanaimo’s E&N Trail is a paved, accessible corridor used for commuting and recreation, running for over 8 km through the city.
The Island Corridor Foundation is a non-profit charity established to own and manage the rail corridor on Vancouver Island, recognizing it as a cultural, social, and economic connector.
Restore Island Rail
Alongside trail development, there’s a growing movement arguing the corridor should remain a railway first – and eventually return to expanded rail service.
Restore Island Rail frames the corridor as an irreplaceable, already-graded transportation asset and has built a large public campaign around protecting and restoring it.
Whether you’re primarily a trail user or a ”bring back the train” person, both sides agree on one thing: once the corridor is fragmented or sold off in parcels, it’s almost impossible to rebuild.
See a fantastic photo gallery of the E&N Line – from Goldstream to Courtenay – posted by Eric Brighton on the Old Vancouver Island Facebook page.
Photo of the locomotive named after Father of Harewood Sam Robins (at the top of this article) from the book The Locomotives Built By Manning Wardle & Company, posted by Roger King on the Old Nanaimo Pictures page. Read more about it.
If you’ve got memories, photos, or family stories tied to rail in South Nanaimo or Harewood – old spurs, trestles, right-of-ways, crossings, work sites – please send them our way.
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