My friend Calvin has started a blog to chronicle “Modelling the village of Vernon River, PE on the CNR’s Murray Harbour Subdivision c.1958.” This morning he posted the first article in a series, describing the construction of CN wood reefers. As he says, these will absolutely be signature rolling stock for a layout set in Prince Edward Island in the 1950’s. Check out the post here:
To say I’m excited about a friend modelling the west end of the Murray Harbour subdivision is an understatement. Calvin does superb work and I’m very, very excited to watch this project unfold.
In his book on the railway, Allan Graham credits the above photo as Keith Pratt’s and dates it 1940. It’s Vernon River. We’re standing on the main road connecting Georgetown to Charlottetown. The railway continues east to Lake Verde, then onto Charlottetown, and eventually the rest of Canada to the right of the photo and Murray Harbour to the left.
That lone coach at the station, I believe, represents a farmer’s market novelty: the railway ran special passenger trains into Charlottetown for the market. The train originated in Murray Harbour but was so popular that by Vernon River an extra coach was needed. Rather than drag the extra coach all the way to Murray Harbour it was strategically placed here, added to the westbound train, and removed from the eastbound run.
Categories: How I think
Prince Street 
Thanks for the signal boost, Chris. Very much appreciated.