Photographs of the Great Northern Railway section house at South Colebrook, British Columbia, taken in early 2004. Modified as a private residence the structure, probably built by the Vancouver, Victoria & Eastern Railway in 1909, is still owned by the BNSF whose land it sits on.

Mount Baker looms in the background of the first photo below, looking southeast. A 24' x 24' station was located on the north side of the tracks here, built in conjunction with the new VV&E main line from White Rock to Brownsville which opened in 1909 and connected with the VV&E—formerly Victoria Terminal Railway—line from Cloverdale to Port Guichon (built in 1903 and abandoned in the 1930's).

The Victoria Terminal Railway west of Cloverdale was resurrected—the eastern sections of Colebrook Road form the original roadbed—in 1970 to access the Roberts Bank coal port and later the DeltaPort intermodal terminal. In the first photo's foreground is BC Rail's Port Sub which begins at Pratt in Cloverdale, connected via the Southern Railway of British Columbia (former BCER) to CN's Rawlison Sub and their main line at Hydro. Next to the foreground track is the BNSF's New Westminster Sub which heads south from the signal to the border via Crescent Beach, Ocean Park and White Rock; next are the two BNSF sidings.

Named after the farm of J.J. Brown (whose father Chris Brown pre-empted land along Mud Bay) , Colebrook was called Oliver up to July 10, 1909, when the name—after local farmer John Oliver who later became British Columbia's premier—was officially changed with the recent opening of the new main line from White Rock. (I do not know what facilities existed at Oliver before the new main line was built. Bayside, named after the farm of John Oliver, appeared in the first VTR&F time tables in 1903, and was located on Oliver Road in Delta about 1.7 miles west of Colebrook.)

Note the sign in the last photo which says NO TRESPASSING PROPERTY OF THE GREAT NORTHERN RY. Based on the GNR plans below, the section house remains in its original location.

A Great Northern Railway plan showing the south junction at Colebrook, dated May 7, 1920. The larger view provides details of the 12' x 24' well and its 12' x 14' pump house and 16' x 24' water tank; two 8' x 12' hand car houses, section laborer's house, proposed section foreman's house (the 16' x 24' Port Kells shelter shed from the recently-abandoned NWSR), 44' x 24' section house (pictured above), freight house (a box car body), 24' x 24' depot, 12' x 16' garage, operator's house, and two sidings which were about 2700 feet long.

A 1927 plan of Colebrook (see below) shows the addition of a "box car body for operator" being completed west of the operator's house on 09-30-20. It also shows the proposal in the 1920 plan above—moving the Port Kells shelter to Colebrook—as being completed 10-09-20, with porches added front and back. About 3550 feet of the right-of-way fence was proposed for moving closer to the tracks in October 1920. The 1927 plan shows today's road crossing on Station Street (125A Street) as being proposed, leading to the Campbell River Lumber Co. Tramway and their milling operations along Mud Bay.

Near the station are the truncated notes, "Propd moving box car body for Colebrook to Lincoln, and moving 30' x 48' depot from Lincoln to Colebrook." The notes also say the cinder platform in front of the depot was to be extended 50 feet, obviously to accommodate the larger depot. These notes are dated 4-5-1? (the last digit is lost). Lincoln was a GNR station in Langley, 14 miles east of Colebrook.

At the west end of Colebrook was Guichon Line Junction, shown in this 1913 plan, where inbound traffic diverted to either Guichon or the main line to Vancouver. When the line from Colebrook to Ladner (the last section of the old VTR&F in use) was abandoned in 1935, the GNR used the former junction as a wye. Southport, one mile east of the depot, formed part of the original wye used at Colebrook—designated in time tables as Colebrook Junction.

An overview from Guichon Line Junction to Colebrook Junction dated 1920, when a large section of right-of-way fence was to be moved. Note the water pipe line in the top-right corner leading to a creek's source at the base of a hill. Also the two small bridges west of the passing track and siding.

A section of a GNR plan titled PRP'D. PUBLIC ROAD CROSSING, COLEBROOK, B.C., dated June 1, 1927. The depot still appears as the 24' x 24' original so the Lincoln station was probably not moved to Colebrook (the faint lines of the proposals can be seen around the depot area). The right-of-way fence has been moved and the shelter from Port Kells has been converted into a section foreman's house, as reflected in the other proposals. The water tank has been removed, but the pipe line has been extended to the buildings across from the depot.

In 1948 the Rowe family purchased the Colebrook depot and had it moved to their farm on 62nd Avenue in Surrey. Here on the farm, the first photograph shows the depot's rear with what appears to be the addition of a porch. The second photograph is the depot's front. The roof is not original, replaced shortly after being purchased. The building was demolished in the mid-1960's when the 15-acre Rowe farm was expropriated for use as a powerline right-of-way.

Colebrook from above as it appeared in 2001, with track equipment on the two sidings and a truck on the access road.

Colebrook was a busy place for the Great Northern, with trains emanating from the railway's extensive Fraser Valley system which at one time stretched from Victoria to Hope. Today the only old GNR building left in the Fraser Valley besides the Colebrook section house is the second White Rock depot (built in 1912) and the Douglas depot (now a private residence). The extant New Westminster depot (the third one) was built in the late 1950's.