Know
your history - The Railway Club
http://www.straight.com/
By
Aaron Chapman
November 9, 2006
Seventy
years ago the Railway Club opened as a members-only pub for
railway workers from the nearby Canadian Pacific station—the
current home of the SeaBus. But the venue hasn’t always
looked as it does today, nor did it begin as a place where beer-swilling
brakemen could grab a pint or three before they staggered back
to work down Seymour Street.
The
1931 city-archives register shows as the home of the European
Concert Café, part of the Laursen Building, which also
housed a number of commercial units. It’s not until 1934
that the register lists a name change to “The Railwaymen’s
Club”.
The
Forsyth family, which now runs “the Rail”, is celebrating
its 25th anniversary of ownership this year. Manager Janet Forsyth
still remembers coming in for the first time in 1981. “It
had these little tables with really gross worn-out covers that
looked like they’d never been changed. We’d bought
the bar off this chainsmoking lady named Dagmar who ran it with
her two boyfriends. It was really more of a legion with a few
pictures of trains around.”
The
subtle interior lighting and dark-wood coziness did not originally
come with the place. “When we opened there was just an
Arborite counter. We built the bar and everything inside,”
Forsyth says.
The
ornate back bar also isn’t original. “That space
was a jeweller’s shop that we took over in 1988. The whole
back bar is from a West End bar called Buddy’s, which
was going out of business. We bought the bar top and fixtures,
and loaded it all through the back door. I don’t know
how we managed to get it all in.”
Under
Forsyth’s management, the club was one of the first in
the city to book original music on a nightly basis. The venerable
Railway stage has hosted just about every local band worth its
salt, many that weren’t, and an endless list of out-of-town
acts playing their first Vancouver shows, including Los Lobos,
Radiohead, and Blue Rodeo.
The
Sport Mart that closed underneath the Railway on the ground
floor of the old Laursen Building made way for a 7-Eleven a
few years ago. The convenience store now casts a bright glare
onto Dunsmuir Street at night, allowing everybody coming out
of the club at closing time, especially its more tipsy patrons,
to suddenly get a better look at who they’d been making
out with upstairs. Just maybe, it might also offer a little
light for the ghosts of railway workers past stumbling home.
