With the proliferation of great stretches of railway lines across Canada and much of the United States, the proposal of a line running some 16 miles connecting downtown Victoria and Sidney was considered a small nondescript shortline. But to those living on the Saanich Peninsula at the turn of the 20th Century, it provided a necessary means of transporting people and goods to and from Victoria.
One of the principle commodities was cordwood from the Sidney mills to fuel the stoves and furnaces of Victoria. The trains of the little line soon earned the name "Cordwood Limited". The line wound it's way through picturesque scenery, skirting the western side of Beaver and Elk Lakes, past the west side of Bear Hill and up to the Prairie Inn in Saanichton.
A portion of the old rail bed between the Keating Station and the Prairie Inn has now been named Veyaness Road, after the V & S Railway
After leaving the Prairie Inn the line continued to the Bazan Bay Brickwork's and Sawmill, and on into Sidney where the line ended on the wharf and at the Sidney Sawmills. Connections could be made from the wharf at Sidney by steamer to Port Guichon near Ladner on the B. C. Mainland, and to the Gulf Islands and Nanaimo.

The line continued to serve the Saanich Peninsula until it's formal closure in 1919.