In 1911 a rail line was started by the Canadian Northern Pacific Railway (CNoPR), a subsidiary of the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR), to connect Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, on Vancouver Island with Nootka Sound on the west coast of the island. It never got that far, reaching only as far as Youbou where construction was terminated. The CNoPR was taken over by Canadian National Railways (CNR) in 1918.
The rail line ran from CNR's station near the Point Ellice Bridge on Victoria's Upper Harbour southwest to Sooke, north to Leechtown, across the Koksilah River on the Kinsol Trestle, to Deerholme, and Youbou on the east end of Cowichan Lake.
From 1922 to 1931 CNR ran a gasoline powered motor car that carried mail and passengers twice daily between Victoria and Leechtown. Passenger service was abandoned but freight service continued until the 1990s with the rails being removed shortly after. This abandoned line between Victoria and Leechtown is now known as the Galloping Goose Regional Trail.
