Exploring the Trinity Train Loop
Trinity Train Loop Park, 2024
Tucked away near Trinity, on the Bonavista Peninsula, sits one of Newfoundland’s strangest relics.
At first glance, it looks like something out of a horror movie: an abandoned theme park with rusted rides, graffiti-scrawled buildings, and broken railway lines that once bustled with activity. It’s the site of the Trinity Train Loop, and while it may be the remnants of a theme park these days, it was once an engineering marvel — the only train loop of its kind in Newfoundland, and maybe in all of Canada.
The Beginning
The story of the Trinity Train Loop starts in 1910. The Reid Newfoundland Company was pushing the railway across the Bonavista Peninsula, but the land was not cooperating. The hills were too steep, too much for a train to climb. Engineers need to find an economical way to move from the elevation of the peninsula’s interior to the coastal community of Trinity. Engineer, J.P. Powell, came up with the perfect solution: build a loop.
His plan called for two kilometers of track to circle a pond in Goose Cove, just outside Trinity. It lowered trains by about 10 meters, but that small drop was enough to take the pressure off the engines and ease the climb. It was practical, but it also made for a spectacle. Imagine standing near the track and watching a train slowly curl around itself, the cars snaking through the trees like a living creature. The Trinity Loop wasn’t just a railway fix, it was a bit of a wonder.
For decades, trains rumbled round the loop but in the 1980s, the Newfoundland railway was shutdown. Across the island tracks were ripped up and sold. The loop would have suffered the same fate destined for the same fate except for retired railwayman Clayton Cook, who recognized its historic value and started a campaign to save it. With the help of some local politicians, the loop was saved — Terra Transport (who owned it at the time) turned it over to the Town of Trinity.
Trinity Train Loop Park, circa 1990
A New Life
Local businessman Francis Kelly purchased the property, restored it and turned it into an amusement park. The Trinity Train Loop park had rides, a concert stage, concessions, and a working train that allowed people to ’ride the loop’. In my recollection, the trees around the Loop Pond were filled with colourful cartoon character cutouts. I think there were pony rides and even accomodations for those who wanted to stay on site.
Families came in droves, piling into cars to spend the day in this odd fairground hidden among the spruce trees. The loop found a new life, filled with laughter, music, and the delicious smell of carnival food.
In 1989 the operation employed 22 people and boasted 36000 visitors but, by the early 2000s, the park shut its gates for good.
Trinity Train Loop Amusement Part, circa 1990
The AfTerlife
Years passed.
What was left behind became overgrown and eerie, almost the perfect setting for a horror movie. There’s a rusting, now fallen, Ferris wheel, paint peeling from crumbling buildings, and graffiti over everything. The forest has begun a slow reclamation of the land, leaving train cars among dense thickets of trees. Storms, notably Hurricane Igor which walloped the Bonavista Peninsula in 2010, have washed away pieces of the rail bed, leaving steel tracks suspended over chasms.
Despite the decay, much of the railway loop remains — you can still walk bits of the rail bed around the pond and appreciate the elegant, early 20th century engineering that made this stretch of the Bonavista railway line feasible.
The area still attracts hundreds, maybe even thousands of visitors each year — drawn by a strange mix of history, nostalgia, and what I think of as a sort of “beautiful decay.” But, if you plan on going, beware — it is full of danger. You’ll find broken glass, rusty metal and unmarked hazards throughout the site.
The Train Loop: Beautiful Decay?
The Never-Ending Loop
In some ways it feels like this stretch of track above Trinity is caught in its own loop — always finding a way back to spectacle.
First, it drew crowds to marvel at a clever railway fix, then it called to families as a fairground. Now it lures explorers, photographers, and nostalgia-seekers to its ruins. Recently the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador has issued a Request for Proposals to develop the former Trinity Loop Amusement Park site. They were interested in tourism-related establishments such as RV parks, resorts, campgrounds, cottage rentals or development of tourist attractions.
So who knows what the future holds in store for this piece of Newfoundland history — for the Trinity Train Loop, every ending seems to circle back to a new beginning.
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Glimpses of the Construction of the Bonavista Branch Railway, Newfoundland Quarterly, Vol 85, Summer, 1989.
Clayton Cook — Railwayman, Decks Awash Magazine, May-June 1989.
Trinity Train Loop Registered Heritage Structure, Heritage Foundation of NL
News Highlights, Newfoundland Quarterly, Vol 86, Fall 1990.
Branch Line Opens With Great Eclat, Daily News, Nov 9, 1911
The Bonavista Railway, Evening Telegram, November 11, 1911
The Loop, Encyclopedia of Newfoundland, Vol. 3.
Farewell To The Longest Narrow-Gauge Railway In North America, Newfoundland Quarterly, Vol 92, Spring-Summer, 1999.
Trinity, Train Loop, Heritage NL.
Adventurers flock to spooky, deserted Newfoundland amusement park, CBC.ca, 2019.
Trinity Train Loop, Hidden Newfoundland.
Request for Proposals, GovNL, 2024
