The New Westminster Bridge across the Fraser River was completed in 1904, linking GN with a line to Vancouver. Across the water the NWSR to Blaine followed the river upstream to the left.

Construction along Semiahmoo Bay near White Rock in 1908. This coastal route, opened in March 1909, replaced the NWSR as the Great Northern's main line.

Looking north on the old Great Northern main line in Cloverdale around 1910. Down the line were the stops Clayton, Port Kells, Bon Accord, Liverpool, and Brownsville (South Westminster).

Service on the NWSR south to the border at Blaine, with its steep grades, was cut but not abandoned when in 1909 GN completed its new line along the coast of Semiahmoo and Mud Bays and then inland from Colebrook to the west side of Brownsville, alongside the northern terminus of the NWSR. This coastal route is now the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) main line to Vancouver. The Great Northern would form the nucleus of the Burlington Northern (BN) when the company, an amalgamation of a number of GN-controlled railways, was created in 1970. BN would become the BNSF when the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway was officially merged in 1995.