End of the Line Silhouette banner

Train Station and Railway Historical Silhouette

Located on a power pole in the 200 block of High Street

The Manitoba and North Western Railway arrived in Saltcoats in 1888. It was the “end of the line” or “end of the steel” before the line was built further to Yorkton.

In the Saltcoats’ history book, Roots and Branches, one pioneer, Cosmos Fehrenbach, wrote of April 1st, 1889, “On that memorable, to us, day, the immigrant train of Manitoba and North Western Railway stopped at Saltcoats. When we say stopped, we mean stopped. Saltcoats was the end of the steel at that time. At the end of the track was a large post, many feet square and firmly braced. When the cow-catcher hit that post, the train stopped. Being somewhat unprepared, this had the effect of hurling one rather violently head foremost into the lap of the person opposite but as we had just finished a rather stormy ocean crossing, and steerage at that, this was a mere detail.”

One mixed train a week was the schedule of the M&N.W. in the beginning. The train arrived in Saltcoats on Saturday and left for Portage on Monday.

The Manitoba & North Western Railway was sold to Canadian Pacific Railway in 1900. CPR owns, maintains, and operates this line today. The last passenger train stopped at Saltcoats decades ago. Now, large freight trains, with upward of 200 cars carrying freight of all sorts, tonnes of potash, huge quantities of oil as well as the traditional crops of wheat, barley, and oats.

The train station, built right beside the tracks was a two-story building traditional train station with living quarters upstairs for the Station Master. The last stationmaster to have that position and to live in the station was Lawrence Ward.

Buried beneath the ground where the station house stood is a Diefenbunker. These structures, sarcastically so dubbed in honour of then Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, were found in many locations. The stationmaster was instructed to, in preparation for a possible atomic bomb attack, maintain supplies of fresh water and canned and dried food in the bunker. In case of attack, he was to take certain documents into the bunker and await notification before exiting this place of safety. This was at a time when drills were being held in schools and the students were to “take cover” beneath their desks.