Pulling open the heavy wooden doors at 579 Dunsmuir, the first thing you’d see was a long, carpeted staircase leading up to a landing. The stairs took a hard right up a few more to another set of heavy wooden doors. If it was a busy night, you might have to join the line up that snaked down those stairs. At the back of that line, you’d shoot a death stare at those squeezing past you, lucky enough to be on the guest list at the Railway Club.
The news came down last week of the closure of the Railway Club after 84 years of business at Dunsmuir and Seymour, and once the initial shock had abated, the inevitable flood of memories poured forth like an open beer tap. Facebook quickly filled with photos and messages mourning the death of what was essentially the Vancouver music community’s living room for the for the past 30 years or so, ever since the Forsyth family took over the unionized, private railway workers’ club in 1981.
The Forsyths’ arrival was timely: the Vancouver indie music scene was at a zenith in the early ‘80s, and the family embraced a long-standing booking policy of original, alternative music into the room, mostly of a roots-based variety. The patrons and musicians in this town rewarded the Railway with a fierce, unprecedented loyalty. The list of touring acts that played the tiny 200-capacity club with the ridiculous, shouldn’t-have-worked-but-did barbell floor plan is legendary: Cowboy Junkies, the Tragically Hip, Los Lobos, Spirit of the West, Great Big Sea, thee Headcoats, k.d. lang, T-Bone Burnett, Rheostatics, and Jonathan Richman, to name but a few.
My own band the Smugglers considered a performance at the Railway Club as a rite of passage in the Vancouver scene. There were more high profile “show rooms” (the Town Pump, Richard’s on Richards, the Commodore), but the Railway was where everyone gathered. When those other clubs could be dead or dark, there was always something happening at the Railway, every night of the week.
I pestered Janet Forsyth on the phone for months for a gig at the Railway. She finally relented, allowing the Smugglers our own Monday night in 1989. Seeing our moniker snuggled up on their colourful monthly poster filled with the names of the best bands of the era was a reward in itself. If you drew a crowd and the bartenders liked you, you could graduate to Tuesday, then Wednesday, slowly earning your way up to the ladder to the coveted and packed Friday and Saturday nights, then the domain of highly respected Vancouver bands like the Jazzmanian Devils, the Nervous Fellas, Hard Rock Miners, and Bob’s Your Uncle.
To attend a show at the Railway, you either had to be a member of the club or have a member sign you in, usually over the watchful eye of Stan the Doorman, the nicest “bouncer” in the history of Vancouver nightclubs. He loved ‘60s music, so if you stopped to chat about the Music Machine, the Gruesomes, or the Zombies, often times he would just wave you in. Stepping inside the dark, pub-like atmosphere, it always felt like you had arrived, like you belonged, like you were officially part of the scene.
So what happened? How could a club exist for 84 years (27 under the management of the Forsyths) only to flounder and fail under seven or so years of new management? “Vibe” can go a long way in this town. According to many longtime patrons, when the Forsyths left, so did the vibe. Supposedly skyrocketing rent, changing downtown demographics and cultural habits (gig-going migrations to Main Street and beyond), as well as alleged mismanagement and misbookings, all led to last week’s closure of a Vancouver institution.
One of my proudest musician moments in this town was opening up those heavy wooden doors on a Saturday night in 1996, seven long years after our Monday night debut performance. There was a line up of gig-goers snaking up the stairs to see the Smugglers. We had arrived.
Goodnight Railway Club, and thanks for the great times.
