Canadian Railroads > Coquihalla Pass before Highway 5, 1980

Today, BC Highway 5 is the principle route from Vancouver to the rest of BC and points east. An highway engineering feat of some note, it avoided the many curves and hills associated with the Fraser Canyon route followed by the Trans-Canada Highway. It was completed in 1986 as a toll highway.

In the 1900's, the Kettle Valley Railway chose this route to cross the coastal mountains. Because only one rail line would fit in the pass, the Great Northern Railway chose not to attempt to build a line over this route, and paid the CPR for trackage rights. Only a single GNR train ever crossed this pass.

Later, a gas pipeline was built over the pass. In 1962, the CPR abandoned this line. The pipeline company built a road along parts of the right of way to access their pipeline.

In the mid-1980's, the BC Government built the Coquihalla Tollway at great expense and some controversy over the pass. At that time, some of the railway remains vanished beneath the new road.

Illustrated is the Bridal Veil trestle near the summit of the pass. The highway went above this area. The trestle finally collapsed two or three years ago.

Further down the valley towards Hope BC was a concrete and wooden snowshed, and a tunnel which the pipeline road used.

During the years that Highway 5 was a tollway, many drivers including truckers attempted to avoid the tollway by driving the old pipeline road and finally the road was gated.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/07/09 06:50 by eminence_grise.

Isn't that just like a trucker (and I'm one): wants lots of roads, but doesn't want to pay for them.

No way would I have driven that old ROW, especially over that bridge. No way.

Do you have any more photos of this line. Neato stuff!

SDP45 Wrote:
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> Do you have any more photos of this line. Neato
> stuff!

Here's a view looking west down the Coquihalla Canyon towards Hope BC, that's my first car, a Dodge Colt. The pipeline road dropped down below the rail grade to avoid several tunnels and bridges. The rail grade always stayed on the east (right) side of the valley. The second image is looking west from very close to the summit of the pass.

CP had a use for the spans on the steel trestle illustrated, so they were taken away when the rails were lifted.

In the 1930's, a westbound CP freight ran away from the summit of Coquihalla Pass. The pusher locomotive was coupled behind the caboose for the trip west to Hope or Ruby Creek to assist an eastbound. The tail end trainman uncoupled the pusher and clambered up onto the front of the pusher engine. The tail end trainman and the pusher crew watched in horror as the westbound sped off into the night. They followed downgrade slowly until they noticed a fire in the canyon floor. The entire westbound freight had ended up in the canyon, with no survivors except the tail end trainman. The bodies of three hoboes (transients) were found in the wreckage also. It is believed everyone was tying on handbrakes.

What is beleived to have happened is the freight encountered a layer of frost on the rails, and the engineer used all the air attempting to slow the train. Because this was a secondary route, most of the freight equipment had K-triple air brakes which lacked the extra emergency brake reservoir.

The tail end trainman, who was the only person who could say what the brake pipe pressure was before the runaway refused to testify at the following coroners enquiry. He was fired for many years by the CPR. He died comparitively recently, but never talked about the incident.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/09 23:40 by eminence_grise.

The Canadian Army Engineers from Chilliwack BC destroyed this trestle as an exercise. Another view of an abandoned tunnel near the summit.

The top of the Coquihalla Pass had rotten rock and was treeless. Also, this part of the Coast Range gets a huge amount of snow. The CPR battled constantly with snow and rock slides on this secondary route. In 1959, a work train had been cleaning up a big rock slide in the area pictured, and headed back to Brookemere at the east side of the pass. No sooner did they get back to the terminal than the section forces in pass told them that another huge slide had come down. They were preparing to return to the pass when a message was received from the chief dispatcher in Penticton. CP management made the decision to close the line rather than repair it. It was abandoned in 1962.

When Highway 5 was built, a parallel canyon on Boston Bar Creek was chosen to get around the difficult terrain at the top of Coquihalla Pass.

Its now free to drive the Coquihalla Highway

slgrad Wrote:
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> Its now free to drive the Coquihalla Highway


The toll was on from 1986 until spring 2009. I think the highway users in general and British Columbians in particular paid for it at least three times.

Fascinating photos and most informative captions . . . . as always. Thanks again for your superb submissions!

Howard Fogg did a series of paintings of MLW locomotives in scenic Canadian locations for Montreal Locomotive Works, at that time an Alco subsidiary.

Fogg was meticulous in his research, and when unable to visit the locations himself, he had photographers take a series of photographs .

When the Kettle Valley Division of the CPR first dieselised, they used MLW FA-2's and RS3's. MLW wanted a painting of the rugged BC territory their locomotives were to work in, and the summit of Coquihalla Pass was chosen.

CP photographer Nicolas Morant took a series of location pictures showing MLW power in the Pass. Fogg's painting shows a single RS3 on an eastbound.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/07/09 21:41 by eminence_grise.

Thanks for the photos and details. One very minor correction, it isn't a gas pipeline, but a crude oil one.