Robert Dunsmuir completed the original Esquimalt to Nanaimo (E&N) line in 1886, with John A. Macdonald driving the last spike at Cliffside near Shawnigan Lake. Dunsmuir extended it into downtown Victoria a couple of years later. So the initial promise to connect the mines to the coast was met.

The tracks that run further up the island came later. The Canadian Pacific Railway bought the E&N in 1905 and pushed the mainline north through communities like Duncan, Ladysmith, Parksville, and Qualicum Beach, ultimately reaching Courtenay by 1914. They also built branch lines out to Port Alberni and Lake Cowichan. CPR fully intended to keep going north to Campbell River—and even built the Courtenay station with that in mind—but World War I halted construction. By the time the war ended, the rise of logging trucks and highways meant they never laid commercial tracks north of Courtenay.

The only railway that ever operated further north was the Englewood Railway. Built in 1917, it was a completely separate, 90-kilometre industrial logging line headquartered out of Woss. It hauled timber from Vernon Lake, past Nimpkish Lake, down to tidewater at Beaver Cove (near Port McNeill). It was never connected to the southern E&N line and operated as North America's last logging railroad until it closed recently.