Do you know where the name of your Harte Trail originated? To answer that question it is necessary to go back into railway history a bit. The Harte Subdivision was the first section of track that was built by the Grand Trunk Railway in western Canada and was in use from 1894 to 1970. The Subdivision took its name from a small community that was a short distance west of Winnipeg. That community no longer exists. Trains used to leave downtown Winnipeg and pass by Pacific Junction Station on their way to Portage La Prairie. If you walk Eastward on the trail from Elmhurst you will, on your right, come across a commutative plaque with information and photographs of Pacific Junction station and you can still see some of the original wooden railroad ties to which the steel rails were attached.
Then there was the CN Cabot subdivision rail line and starting in July 1970 the Prairie Dog Central steam train ran on these tracks. The train departed from a make shift station at Elmhurst and Ridgewood and travelled west through Charleswood, across the Perimeter Highway and on to the end of the line on stretch of track called the CN Harte Subdivision. Once at its destination the engine would be detached from the front of the train, run around the train cars, using a secondary track and be attached to the rear of the train cars. The engine would then pull the cars backwards to the starting point. This track, our present trail, was in use in this manner until September of 1974. The last run of the Prairie Dog Central on our trail/track was September 29th 1974. After that the rails lay idle for a while and were then removed. The empty roadbed became our Harte Trail
