Finnegan Alberta

Located deep in a river valley in a remote part of the province, Finnegan Alberta is nothing more than a little point on the map and that’s likely all it has ever been. A siding on CPR branch line (long gone), there is not much to see here, nor was there ever. It’d be easy to pass by the place never knowing that at one time something stood here – not much, but something. Outside the train line which can be spotted in places, the only real remnants left is the old railway loading ramp. Even that’s hard to see, being completely overgrown by vegetation.

It’s a simple wood and earthen structure used for off loading rail cars. Mostly for inbound shipments, lumber for example could be brought in to build a house in the area, or perhaps they’d unload new farm equipment here. The freight car was spotted on one side of the dock and a wagon or truck on the other, allowing freight to be easily transferred between the two. Wheeled freight, tractors for example, could be driven off the car and then down the ramp.

↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ Scroll down for photos and to comment ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓

Every town on the prairies had one of these loading ramps, most are long gone though, and they were essential back when everything travelled by rail. They are framed with heavy beams and the centre is filled with packed dirt or gravel. It was cheap and simple and assured the railway additional traffic.

Why it survives today is anyone’s guess? One would think it would have been bulldozed when the line was pulled up.

If there was ever a town here, in the traditional sense, this author has found no evidence of it. Sure there was one grain elevator (the town’s entire “business district”) but outside that, nothing can be found. Walking around the field near the ramp and researching Finnegan online both turned up little.

As mentioned there was once a single grain elevator here, a Parrish and Heimbecker built in the early 1930s and gone by the late 1970s. Note: some sources list two elevators here, but I believe they are in error. An image at the Royal Alberta Museum shows a pair, but it’s clearly not Finnegan as the river flats shown are too broad and the rail line is too far from the valley edge.

There are sections of the rail line to be seen here, remnants of the CPR’s Rosemary Subdivision which came through in the late 1920s. This line ran from its namesake town to East Coulee and was a conduit for coal moving east coming from the numerous mines in the Red Deer River valley near Drumheller. When that traffic dried up in the 1970s (it had been in decline since the 1950s), the line was cut back with Finnegan becoming the end of steel. At that time the only product moving was grain and even then only sporadically.

Surprisingly, this sleepy little branch managed to hang on until the 1970s, with the occasional short train visiting the town to service the grain elevator. Larry Buchan, a good friend and former CPR employee even managed to document a visit to Finnegan (link below). By the time he worked the line in 1974-75, train service was rare along this section and not long after his last trip the line was abandoned.

Don’t forget to LIKE or SHARE this post.

Further up the line, west of Finnegan, is the very photogenic ghost town of Dorothy Alberta. There is an abandoned grain elevator there, one of only a handful painted in Alberta Pacific colours, along with two very nice churches. It’s a worthwhile visit if you are in the area. Further west again is the historic Atlas Mine, a museum you can visit.

The next station east of Finnegan is called Bullpound, a railway water stop and not a real town, and home to a large abandoned bridge, which we visited in the fall of 2013. See a link below…

Finnegan is home to one of the few river ferries operating in the province. If you head south from the rail line, a small scow will take you across the river. I guess there is not enough traffic to justify building a bridge here.

To see Larry Buchan’s report where he documents a trip to Finnegan click the link below…
RailwayEarth.com (now offline).

To see the Bullpound bridge mentioned in this report, go here…
Bridge hunting – Bullpound Alberta.

To see some other reports from the Red Deer River valley, follow these links…
Stirling Mine – Commander Mine – Nacmine Alberta.
Abandoned Murray Mine.

If you’d like to know more about this place, by all means contact us!

Date: May 2013.
Location: Finnegan, AB.

  • _________________________

    BIGDoer.com: Doing it Different!



    Something to say in private? Click here to: Reach Us!
    NEWS!First TimersFAQMeet the Team
    BIGDoer.com on Facebook

    If you liked this post, please tip your server…



    Or

    © 2012-2024 Chris Doering, Johanna (Connie) Biggart & the BIGDoer.com Society. 🍁🎀

Finnegan AB railway loading ramp

This old railway loading ramp is all that’s left of the town of Finnegan Alberta.

8 responses

  1. Braeden Watson says:

    The link to Mr. Buchan’s report doesn’t work anymore, luckily it’s still available via the Wayback Machine. https://web.archive.org/web/20190329041628/http://railwayearth.com/?p=136

    There is another image on there that shows 2 grain elevators at Finnegan, is that the same picture that you are talking about in the article?

    • Sadly Larry Passed on a couple years back and sadly missed. He was such a wealth of information and we would chat for hours about train stuff. His railway timepiece collection was incredible. It could be the same photo, but this post is quite old and the notes for it long gone, so I’m only recalling from memory (and it’s badly diseased – haha). The elevators in Finnegan were within sight of the river, and it’s not visible in that photo. And if memory serves me correct, there many have been only one elevator there.

  2. Biking with Jerry says:

    In the 1970s I was a bored teenager living in East Coulee and a friend and I drove our dirt bikes along the railway tracks from town to Finnegan. The railroad was still in place but I’m pretty sure a train hadn’t passed for over a year. Some sections were washed out and what a rough trip it was. We had to ride down the middle between the tracks, bouncing all the way, since beside the dirt was too soft. We were unlicensed but we drove back along the highway on the return trip.

    I have not been to the area in decades and now live in Toronto. I thought about that trip yesterday for the first time in years and your website came up when I searched for Finnegan Alberta.

    • ChrisBigDoer says:

      What a great story!!!! My friends and I, when bored, would do crazy stuff like this too. We had no motor bikes, just ten speeds, and it was amazing the places we went in those things.

      • Richard says:

        Finnegan Ferry

        The Finnegan Ferry is a historic cable ferry in Alberta, Canada that is still in operation. It is located at the unincorporated community of Finnegan. The ferry is the North/South connection of Alberta Highway 862 where it crosses the Red Deer River.

        It is named for John Finnegan (1842-1924) who homesteaded on the river, then opened and operated the ferry. The community is named after the ferry. According to a tourism guidebook, Finnegan “was a very active wirey man all his life and at the age of 75 could still do handsprings!”[2]

        The toll-free ferry is operated by Alberta Transportation. It has a capacity of thirteen cars, or fifty passengers. The ferry operates between 7:00 am and midnight from April 20 until November 15.

        Finnegan Ferry has a weight limit of 62.5 tonnes (61.5 long tons; 68.9 short tons) and dimensions of the ferry are 22.5 metres (74 ft) long and 10.36 metres (34.0 ft) wide.[3]
        In popular culture

        In 1991, musician Tom Cochrane shot part of the music video to his hit song Life Is a Highway on the ferry.[2]

        • Very interesting. Thanks for adding to the story!

          • Richard says:

            I was able to find a image of the sign at the ferry which says:

            Finnegan’s Ferry

            In the list of locations of “new ferries built and installed” in the records of ALberta’s Department of Public Works for 1913, Finnegan’s Crossing on the Red Deer River was one of the locations given. The Finnegan Ferry helped make a total of 58 ferries operating in the province that year. Like many other ferries, this one was named for a nearby homesteader who became one of the ferrry’s first operators. John Finnegan had come to Glelchen from Scotland in the 1840s. He worked for the Canadian Pacific Railway, and then opend a shop in Glelchen making window frames, tables and doors before taking up his homestead bordering the river.

            Through the years, ferry operators have spoken of the peaceful, isolated spot at Finnegan with gentle breezes rustling the trees and the perfect location for a garden. They recall the times spent chatting to all the farmers taking load after load of grain to the elevator. Then there was the time when high water lodged fallen trees against the ferry, breaking the moorings and sending it to the middle of the river, then downstream. Once a car’s brakes failed while waiting for the ferry to cross the river to pick it up and it slipped slowly into the water. The ferryman gave the angry driver dry clothes. And then there was the time the Dorothy Ferry ended up down at Finnegan’s Crossing after an eventful journey that included being pulled from sandbars by 12 horses.

            Now, carrying cars and pick-ups, farm families and tourists, business traffic and leisurely travelers, the Finnegan Ferry continues a tradition begun here in the last century, of crossing water to make journeys shorter.

            The Finnegan Ferry Today

            Type of Ferry – Cable
            Year Built – 2001
            Length of Crossing – 110m
            Length of crossing – 3-5 minutes
            Ferry Length – 22.5m
            Ferry Breadth – 10.4m
            Ferry hull Depth – 1.37m
            Load capacity – 62.5 tonnes

          • Fantastic, thanks for sharing! We’ve been across the ferry a couple times and even though the trip lasts but a moment, it’s most enjoyable. Keep those comments coming.

You cannot copy content of this page

Please log-in to continue...
This allows unrestricted access to every post @BIGDoer.com, popups are eliminated,
commenting is on and the "contact us" page is enabled.

Esc to close this box.

Lost Password?

Or...

Your social site may send you a routine notice of login.

Or signup, here: Subscriber Register
___
BIGDoer.com: Serving up POP HISTORY & other McFun!…(Mmmm, yummy bite-sized pieces.)
One million plus words & tens of thousands of photos!