A detailed 1958 blueprint of Brownsville covering the Great Northern Railway main line from MP 138.7 to MP 140 and its 4001' siding and 1778' interchange track with Canadian National Railways. Below those tracks is the CN line (green) from Port Mann to the former Searle grain elevator along the Fraser River, their interchange track with GN, and a spur to the Mount Baker Plywood Co. The elevator, pictured below, was built in 1928 and later would be the site of Fraser Surrey Docks. Also shown is Robson Road and what is today Elevator Road. Select for a full-size view (3521 x 1198; 168K) or click here for a highly detailed view (7041 x 2396; 360K).

Previous to the 1920's, grain from the Canadian prairies was shipped to ports in eastern Canada: With the opening of the Panama Canal and the proliferation of farms along CN's feeder lines in the prairies, grain began being shipped to elevators on the west coast. The Searle elevator located here was one of hundreds the company operated, many of them generating much needed traffic for CN.

Built in the early 1960's at the site of the elevator, Fraser Surrey Docks now has six berths accommodating 200 coastal and ocean-going vessels each year, the largest general purpose marine terminal in British Columbia. Accessed by all the major railways in British Columbia — but only directly, on their own lines, by the BNSF, CN, and SRY — the facilities are also serviced by Fraser Surrey Docks Ltd., a licensed railway with two small locomotives and extensive holding tracks.

The track diverging off the BNSF main line to the right, now removed, used to access Delta Alaska Terminal where the Alaska Trainship Corp. carried rail cars to and from Whittier, Alaska in the 1960's and 1970's.

Today at Brownsville the BNSF has two mile-long sidings known as the "old" and "new" along its main line. Previously BNSF northbounds with CN traffic from Everett, Washington, yarded at these sidings where CN crews and motive power made the delivery to Port Mann. Today such BNSF trains travel directly to Port Mann, the motive power later used for the "New Westminster-Everett" southbound that is serviced and air tested there.