I love train stations and I love abandoned buildings. The old station in Piney, Manitoba ticks both of those boxes!
Our family took a road trip to Piney in April 2017 to see the old station. You can read this post if you wish. That one post ended up getting more than 14,000 views and 50 comments; it blew up!
I returned to Piney in June 2020 for a quick visit. It was a pretty rainy day, and I was busy traversing the Sprague subdivision for my mile-by-mile summary.
Recently, I returned to Piney for the third time. The weather was very pleasant – sunny but not too warm – and I was able to fly my drone to get a different perspective on the station.
First, a ground view. The ground cover is thick in July!
After a few more ground shots, I put the drone up and started shooting. Here’s a view, facing west, showing the station in relation to the rest of the town. The former CN Ridgeville subdivision is visible to the right of the station.
This top-down view from the drone shows the condition of the roof. The main structure is mostly covered but the freight shed’s roof is in poor condition.
Eventually I landed the drone, and went for a walk. The Ridgeville subdivision used to run west from South Junction on the CN Sprague subdivision to Emerson, Manitoba and the CN Letellier subdivision.
I understand the last train on the entire subdivision ran in 1967. Today it looks like it is mostly used by ATVs. It was a pleasant walk!
All things come to an end, and so did my third visit to Piney.
See you in another three years?
The Section House
There’s another railway structure in Piney. This was the section foreman’s house, according to the Manitoba Historical Society. It’s in poor shape. The chimney has collapsed and so has most of the two-story building.
I love how the woods dominate the buildings
Nature is reclaiming them!
Almost treed in, the section foreman’s house term is correct. I worked with a conductor at CN, Ken Kulbubba, his dad was the section foreman at Piney until they shut the line down (in 1960 I think) and they transferred to Winnipeg and he worked out of Portage Jct after that.
Wild how fast the forest is reclaiming the old railway line and buildings. For times like this, the drone does help give an aerial perspective of things!