Canada's Once-Thriving Railway-Turned-Amusement-Park Is Now An Abandoned Urban Explorer's Playground

Hidden in the woods near the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador is one of Atlantic Canada's most intriguing urban exploration sites: an abandoned amusement park built atop a historic railway. These days, it's a wild hiking spot known as the Trinity Train Loop, but it was once a unique piece of railway ingenuity that allowed trains to navigate steep hills before reaching the neighboring town of Trinity. Visitors today will find remnants of rusted train tracks curling around a pond, crumbling carnival artifacts, and an enveloping backdrop of spruce forest.

Part of the appeal of visiting the rundown Trinity Train Loop is, no doubt, its eerie, forgotten atmosphere, shrouded in graffiti and decay. But for others, it serves nostalgia more than spookiness. After all, the amusement park that took over the railway site was in operation until 2004, per the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador (HFNL), a time still fresh in locals' memories. One Facebook user wrote, "[M]y first job was at Trinity loop up with all the animals! I would rebuild this back to its former glory!" There aren't any signs of the amusement park or railway getting a revival, but you can at least walk around the site and imagine its vacation-filled golden days.

The Trinity Train Loop owes its origins to the particular location of Trinity, a small Newfoundland town with historic charm and whale watching. Being hemmed in by coastline on one side and surrounded by hills on the other made it difficult to get a railroad directly to Trinity. But with a bit of innovative engineering, the problem was eventually solved. To get the train tracks to descend over hills into the town, a graded loop was made around a pond, now known as Loop Pond. The looping railway was in service from 1911 to the 1980s, but the tracks were preserved because of their historical significance. You can see some graffiti-covered abandoned railway carriages sitting around it today.

The second chapter of the Trinity Train Loop came when an entrepreneur saw the loop's potential as grounds for an amusement park. Old footage of the amusement park shared by CBC News shows a colorful train ride repurposing the loop, bumper boats, and a mini golf course, among some of the park's former attractions. There was a Ferris wheel, too, its decayed frame now collapsed on the ground. The park closed in 2004 as its attendance declined, and some of its structures were marred by Hurricane Igor in 2010.

There's an informal hiking trail that circles for about a half-mile through the abandoned site of the Trinity Train Loop. It's not a maintained trail, and some AllTrails reviewers have noted that there's a lot of broken glass around the site, so make sure to bring durable shoes. If you're looking for more traditional hiking in Newfoundland and Labrador, you might want to try the Quidi Vidi Loop Trail that's part of the idyllic Trans Canada Trail stretching coast to coast.

For long-haul travelers, the closest major commercial airport to the Trinity Train Loop is the St. John's International Airport, nearly three hours away. Since it's not exactly a light day-trip, you might want to pair a visit to the abandoned loop with time in Trinity itself, which is just a 10-minute drive from the train loop. Or, head a bit farther north (about 45 minutes by car) to Bonavista at the peninsula's tip, one of the spots along Canada's iceberg-lined coast to chase rare, jaw-dropping sights of the bergs.