Canadian Pacific

It is impossible to travel in this region without learning about and being impressed by the people who were responsible for the development of the CP transcontinental line and those who have kept it operating over the years.

We have - inadvertently I must admit - touched on many of the iconic elements of the history of the railway during our journey and - at the risk of giving Jimmy C another stick with which he can castigate me both in print and over a bottle of wine - it has proved fascinating.

From the site of the Golden Spike at Craigellachie to the railway museum at Revelstoke and the crew change point and the Spiral Tunnels at our current temporary home in Field we cannot get away from the CPR.

We see the trains possibly a dozen or more times a day - whether running alongside the highway or holding us up at a level crossing for 15 minutes or more - and realise that they stretch from 1.5 to 3.0 km long moving at an average of about 40km  per hour.

On our way to Lake Louise today we stopped in Kicking Horse Pass to look out over the spiral tunnels which now allow these behemoths to negotiate the climb over the continental divide.  The original 'Big Hill' which the trains had to climb when the railway was first built had a gradient of nearly twice that specified so it was eventually replaced by the Spiral tunnels while the TransCanada now uses the 'Big Hill' for road traffic.

Standing at the viewpoint you can see the train pass below you, round a curve and enter the tunnel, complete the spiral and exit the tunnel while the tail end is still passing below the view point - quite an engineering feat.