Prairie Dog Central Railway

Prairie Dog Central Railway runs from Inkster Junction Station at 64099 Prairie Dog Trail, in the Rural Municipality of Rosser immediately north of Winnipeg Richardson International Airport, out across open Manitoba farmland to the hamlet of Grosse Isle. The railway owns and maintains about 9.3 miles (15 km) of the former Canadian National Oak Point Subdivision, standard gauge at 4 ft 8.5 in (1,435 mm). Mackenzie and Mann built the line between 1905 and 1910 for the Canadian Northern Railway, and it passed to Canadian National in 1923.

The operator is the Vintage Locomotive Society Inc., a registered charity that ran its first regular public trains on 11 July 1970. The society has moved base three times: Charleswood from 1970 to 1974, St. James from 1975 to 1996, and finally Inkster Junction in 1999. That last move was not a relocation so much as a rescue — when Canadian National decided to abandon the Oak Point Subdivision, the society raised 1.3 million dollars and bought the line outright, which is why the Prairie Dog Central owns its right-of-way instead of renting time on someone else''s.

Inkster Junction Station is itself part of the collection. The Canadian Northern Railway built it in 1910 as the southernmost station on the Oak Point Subdivision, on Portage Avenue near St. James Street; the society moved the building to its present site in February 2000, and it carries a Canadian Heritage Railway Station designation. Inside are two waiting rooms, a ticket office, a baggage and freight room, and a gift shop called the Freight Shed, with cream and milk cans, wrought-iron benches, period luggage and a baggage wagon out on the platform.

The land does the work here. The Oak Point Subdivision runs straight across flat, open farmland with almost no trees or cuttings, so a train is visible from a long way off and nothing blocks a low sun. The Friday 6:30 PM departure is the one that puts the consist in evening light; the 11:00 AM runs give flat overhead light and suit detail work better than landscape.

The 75 to 90 minute stopover at Grosse Isle is the only guaranteed chance to photograph the whole train from the ground. Five wooden coaches and a caboose make a long enough consist that you need real distance to fit it in, and the open ground there gives you that. At Inkster Junction, work the 1910 station building, the baggage wagon and the platform props before departure — and if No. 3 is on the point, shoot the Pyle sealed-beam headlight and the plain stack now that the movie-prop diamond stack has finally come off.

Onboard, the coach windows open, which makes going-away shots possible from the vestibule end. Passengers ride in costume on most departures, so ask before making people your subject.

The reason to make the drive is locomotive No. 3, a 4-4-0 that Dübs and Company built in Glasgow in 1882 for the Canadian Pacific Railway, and the oldest operating steam locomotive in Canada. It worked passenger trains in Ontario as CPR No. 22, moved west, was rebuilt by CP in 1909, and in 1918 was sold to the City of Winnipeg Hydro, where it served the hydroelectric stations on the Winnipeg River until 1961 — surviving a roundhouse fire at Pointe du Bois in December 1943 along the way. Enthusiasts brought it back to Winnipeg in February 1967. It received a frame-off rebuild with a new boiler between 2001 and 2009, and in 2024 the society launched a public campaign for its mandatory 15-year overhaul, which required replacing all 187 boiler tubes at an estimated cost of about 150,000 dollars.

Over the winter of 2025-26 the volunteer shop crew hydrostatically tested the boiler, cleaned scale out of the tender, and undid decades of film-set cosmetics: the fake diamond stack and headlight added for a 1970s movie shoot came off, replaced by the Pyle sealed-beam headlight the engine actually carried in Winnipeg Hydro service, and the yellow striping and cab plaques were removed. The engine on the point today looks far closer to the one that worked this prairie for a living.

The train behind it is nearly as old. Coach 105 dates from 1901 and came from Barney and Smith of Dayton, Ohio; 104 was built by the Crossen Coach Company of Cobourg, Ontario in 1906; 103 is a 1908 Pullman combine seating 36 with a baggage compartment, named Gordon Younger; 106 and 107 came out of Canadian Pacific''s Angus Shops in 1913 and 1911, with 107 always marshalled on the rear. Caboose 109 completes the consist. When No. 3 is not in steam the train runs behind one of two preserved EMD GP9 diesels — 4138, built at La Grange, Illinois in November 1958 and rated 1,750 horsepower, or 1685, built at General Motors'' London, Ontario plant in March 1957.

A standard run leaves Inkster Junction at 11:00 AM and is back at about 2:45 PM. The ride to Grosse Isle takes roughly 50 to 60 minutes each way, with a 75 to 90 minute stopover in between; some trips continue north to Warren. You board off a low platform into wooden coaches with windows that open, and an onboard historian works the train. There is no dome car, no diner and no air conditioning — this is 1900s branch-line travel, prairie wind included.

Grosse Isle is what turns the trip into an afternoon out rather than a ride. The hamlet''s heritage site runs a community market with home baking, produce and handicrafts, plus food vendors, entertainment, a nature playground and small train rides for children, in a pioneer-village setting with indoor washrooms.

Most departures are sold as themed events rather than plain excursions, and they sell out. The 2026 season has already run a Star Wars train in May and a Great Train Robbery in June that sold out before the date; August alone carries Barbie, Summer Fun, Princess Power, Bonnie and Clyde, Superhero Sunday, Pokémon Go, Harry Potter, an 18-plus Yuk Yuk''s comedy train and Good vs Evil. Halloween Express trains run in October, and select December dates carry winter specials. Small groups can book out Coach 104 (eight passengers), Coach 105 (six) or the VIP caboose (twelve) as an exclusive experience with snacks, beverages and takeaway gifts, priced on request through the ticket office.