The Railroad

The Railroad in Cayley, Alberta: a Documented History

Capturing Stories and Pictures in Cayley.

Origins (1891–1893). In 1891 the Calgary & Edmonton Railway (leased to CPR) began pushing a southern extension toward Fort Macleod. High River got a siding in 1893 as the route matured, and the line through what became Cayley was in service by 1892, the year local stockyards sprang up to handle trail-driven herds from nearby ranches.

Why a rail point at Cayley? Cayley sat in the middle of large foothills ranches, so once rail arrived, it became a prime loading point. Contemporary/local histories note that Cayley quickly grew into one of the largest livestock shipping points in the Northwest Territories/Western Canada, a claim commemorated on a Highway 2A sign erected in 2001. Timetables and the subdivision. The line was CPR’s Macleod Subdivision (Calgary–Fort Macleod). An April 26, 1953, Employee Timetable lists CAYLEY at mile 47.9 from Calgary with a siding capacity of 57 cars, bracketed by Connemara (51) to the north and Azure (46) to the south.

Grain handling: companies and dates.

1914 – Alberta Farmers’ Co-operative Elevator Co. (AFCEC) built an elevator at Cayley as Local No. 20. AFCEC soon became part of United Grain Growers (UGG) in 1917, so the Cayley house operated under UGG thereafter.

Over the 20th century Cayley had at least seven elevators (all now demolished), consistent with broader Alberta patterns (AWP/“the Pool,” UGG, Searle, Federal, McCabe, Western, etc., operating in many towns). Cayley sources specifically note the seven-elevator count.

Province-wide elevator history helps frame Cayley’s boom: Alberta’s first elevator dates to 1895; traditional wooden “prairie sentinels” were still being built as late as 1985 by Alberta Wheat Pool.

Station, service, and decline. Daily life revolved around the station platform through the mid-20th century. As trucking took over, passenger service waned; local recollections say the Cayley station closed by the mid-1960s (reported as “by fall 1966”).

After the trains. The Macleod Subdivision was progressively shortened; rails south/west were lifted by the 1990s, and in 2016 the remaining portion was re-designated into the Aldersyde Subdivision.