Mackenzie Northern Railway

Infobox SG rail
railroad_name=Mackenzie Northern Railway
locale=Alberta, Northwest Territories
start_year=1964| end_year=present
hq_city=Peace River, Alberta
marks=RLGN
The Mackenzie Northern Railway reporting mark|RLGN was a 602-mile Canadian railway operating in Alberta and the Northwest Territories. It is the northernmost trackage of the contiguous North American railway network.

History

The majority of the tracks which the Mackenzie Northern Railway used were built by the federal government as the Great Slave Railway, running from a point on the Northern Alberta Railways at Grimshaw, Alberta, to the southern shores of Great Slave Lake at Hay River, NWT starting in 1961 and opening in 1964. The line was built to forward supplies to the new port facilities at Hay River, from which cargo and passengers could be transported by barge across Great Slave Lake and down the Mackenzie River and along the shores of the Beaufort Sea.

The Great Slave Railway's operation was entrusted to Canadian National Railway in 1966, which had been operating the line on behalf of the federal government since it opened. The line also continued east from Hay River, along the south shore of Great Slave Lake, to a mine at Pine Point. This section was abandoned in 1992 once concentrate shipments from the closed mine ceased. The total mileage in the Northwest Territories from the border with Alberta to Hay River is approximately 80 miles.

In 1981, CN purchased the other half of the Northern Alberta Railways from Canadian Pacific Railway, allowing CN to operate continuously from Edmonton to Hay River.

ale to RaiLink

Between November 1997 and May 1998 CN sold its lines running from Smith, Alberta, on the former NAR (north of Edmonton) to Peace River and Grimshaw and on to Hay River to a shortline operator, RaiLink. RaiLink consolidated these lines under the name Mackenzie Northern Railway.

RaiLink was subsequently purchased by RailAmerica, which operated the Mackenzie Northern Railway between Smith and Hay River. Commodities included agriculture and forest products from northeastern Alberta and the southern Northwest Territories, as well as fuel and supplies destined for Arctic communities to be barged across Great Slave Lake and down the Mackenzie River to the Beaufort Sea.

CN buys lines back

On January 19, 2006, CN announced the purchase from RailAmerica Inc. of the Mackenzie Northern Railway, the Lakeland & Waterways Railway, and the Central Western Railway (jointly known as RLGN/CWRL).

CN came full circle by paying $26 million for the three northern Alberta rail lines it sold nine years previously.

In buying the Mackenzie Northern, Lakeland & Waterways and Central Western railways from RailAmerica, CN got an already profitable operation with potential to profit from strong growth in the oilsands and natural gas pipelines, said CN spokesman Jim Feeny. It will spend $40 million from 2006 to 2009 upgrading the system "to CN standards" to allow the movement of larger volumes of oil and gas infrastructure building materials, oilsands byproducts, minerals, and forest and grain products in northern Alberta, Feeny said.