The parking lot is immediately adjacent to the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) tracks, allowing one to get as close as one dares to the trains as they pass by. This location is just north of the small Ashcroft rail yard, so trains generally don't go by in much of a hurry. Much of the CPR's mainline in BC hac been double tracked, allowing trains to pass and, more importantly, for more trains to pass by a given location each day. As a result, one may be witness to as many as 25 to 30 long freights passing through Ashcroft on a weekday. A great many of them today are unit trains, that is trains of a single type of car, such as coal trains, tanker trains, ore trains, container trains or grain trains. As a matter of fact one may go days without seeing the standard boxcar.
The CPR mainline to the Pacific was completed in 1885 and was completed from Vancouver to Ashcroft in 1884, creating a great stimulus for the creation and growth of the town. Being on the mainline also meant that passenger service continued for Ashcroft longer than it did in other centres on spur lines, finally ending in 1990. Still on the main line, Ashcroft sees many trains pass through daily, making this an excellent train watching location.
While a stopping house had been built in the vicinity in 1863, named after Ashcroft Manor in England, it wasn't until 1883 that a town site was surveyed, likely because because locals were then aware that a railroad was soon to pass through.. Ashcroft's true history began with the coming of the CPR in 1884. A bridge was built over the Thompson River and Ashcroft became the railhead for the north and the third Mile "0" for the Cariboo Road (after Lillooet and Yale). It was the Cariboo Road which provided access to central and northern British Columbia and the rich gold fields therein. Once a road was built to link the railway to the old Cariboo Road, Ashcroft quickly replaced Yale as the gateway to the Cariboo, and for the next 30 years it served as a major supply centre for the goldfields in the north.
Did you know? - The CPR was the first railroad to adopt piggyback trains. A piggyback consisted of a flat decked rail car on which were loaded road going semi-trailers. Now completely superseded by containers, you won't see any piggybacks pass by these days.