CN_No6TugOkanaganLakePenticton01

CN No. 6 Tug:

CN No. 6 tug boat moored at the Heritage docks in Penticton BC on Okanagan Lake - Photographed September 18, 2009.

Reacquainting ones self to the history of Kelowna, I have chilly memories of watching the old CN No. 6 tug chugging through the ice on Okanagan Lake during one winter in the 1960s. This vintage beauty was built at the CN dock next to the mouth of Brandt's Creek back in 1947 (along with the MV Okanagan, the Ferry boat Lloyd-Jones and CN No. 5 Tug) and was in full service from 1948 until 1972 when CN's lease ran out on the land in Kelowna.

Back in those days the CPR had one or two tugs in operation with each tug pulling/pushing one or two barges that each could load eight freight cars (on wooden barge) or ten cars on the steel barges. There were two sets of tracks on each barge to connect with the railway tracks on the docks in Okanagan Center, Kelowna, Westbank, Greta Ranch, Summerland, Naramata, and Penticton. They were unloaded with a winch and cable run through a block on the dock and loaded the same way via a block on the end of each track on the barge. A large volume of fruit during harvest season moved between Kelowna and Penticton with much of the Osoyoos and Oliver fruit moving through Penticton.

Besides the fruit there were other commodities such as oil, cars and occasionally farm animals.

While I focus on the tug I realize that the weather today is not as hostile as June 16th, 2007 when the tugboat first pulled into Penticton: The weather was kind enough not to dump down buckets of rain until after the historic voyage was over as the CN Tug No 6 was towed into Penticton after a slow voyage from Kelowna after making stops along the way to pick up dignitaries in Summerland. While the tugboat‘s engines, built in 1948, were unable to turn over for this voyage of the tugboat – the vessel was guided south with the assistance of the tugboat division of Vancouver Pile Driving – plans are to have the ship fully restored. After it's refit and restoration, the tug boat will be used as a tourist adventure, taking groups of people on tours up and down Okanagan Lake theoretically linking the Okanagan Lake past with the future tourist market.

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Until 1972, Most of the rail traffic generated on the Osoyoos Subdivision and in
Penticton went up Okanagan Lake. That included lumber, fruit, wood chips and
bulk oil. Kelowna had the large Sun Rype plant as well as various sizable
lumber operations, bulk oil and a large plant, Weyerhaeuser - if I remember
correctly - that manufactured cardboard and wax paper for use in the areas fruit
packinghouses. I spent many an evening at the CN station in Kelowna when I
attended college there during the winter of 1970-71. Each railway had a daily
freight train and those were usually sizeable trains. The demise of fruit
shipments by rail played a major part in the cancellation of barge services on
Okanagan Lake. By 1972, the small packinghouses at places like Peachland, had
or were in the process of folding.

In the case of the CPR barge service, that traffic decline was coupled to a wage
settlement that scuttled the economic viability of the CPR barge operation. It
wasn't that the settlement itself was outrageous, because railway wage rates
then were anything but generous, it was simply because revenue traffic had
declined to the point that the service was no longer economic. Also thrown into
the matter was the fact that the city of Kelowna wanted the railways off the
waterfront and refused to renew railway leases on their waterfront properties.

It should be noted that the CN Pentowna was no longer in regular service on
Okanagan Lake by the 1960s. It was strictly a standby vessel to pinch hit when
CN tug NO. 6 was laid up.

Southbound traffic for the barges usually was either returning empties or loaded
tank cars. CN traffic on Okanagan Lake was mostly fruit and a small amount of
bulk oil shipments southbound.

by Joe Smuin

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