Canadian Railroads > Doing the "P.K." on Via 2 at Jasper AB.

Whether performed in detailed by a journeyman car inspector, or by the operating crews of trains, in Canada, a visual inspection of a train's running gear has always been called a "PK", and recorded as such in train journals and RTC's (dispatchers) train sheets.
Likely an acronym created by a Morse telegrapher over a hundred years ago, it remains in daily railroad speech on all Canadian lines.

Against the background of a threatening mountain thunderstorm, a CN car inspector has just finished his "PK" of Via 2, the eastbound "Canadian" passenger train at Jasper AB in August 2014. A legacy of huge passenger trains of the past at Jasper is the very long platform in front of the station. Passenger trains using Jasper station have long had their own dedicated track in front of the station, adjacent to the CN main line. Because of the long platform, bikes are used by carmen and others to carry out work tasks.

In this series of photos, the carman has just presented the engine crew with an inspection form, and then removes the "blue flag" protection from in front of the train. He then rode down to the track turnout where he will "roll by" inspect the opposite side of the train, and line the turnout for the main after the train leaves the platform track.

Both the carman, my daughter and me fully expected to get soaked watching Via 2 leave Jasper. The sky grew almost biblically dark above us. The usual wind ahead of the rain raced down the platform, kicking up a small dust storm around the turnout where the carman was watching the train. The storm went away as quickly as the train, leaving only a few droplets on the sidewalk of Connaught Avenue which parallels the tracks in Jasper.

Nice series of photos. Probably not too many places in North America where bicycles are still used by the railroads in day-to-day operations.

Looks like the "Old man sleeping" is still in good shape. A few years ago a young lady on the platform at Jasper told me about that name the mountains to the southeast received from their combined shape.


Jay

Connaught Avenue in Jasper shortly after the passeger train departed. Jasper is at heart a small railroad town which sees a huge influx of tourists visiting the surrounding National Parks every year. Hotels and campgrounds remain full all summer, and the restaurants along Connaught Avenue have lines of people waiting for a table by early afternoon.

The coffee bar on the station platform is empty after the train has departed however.

A Jasper resident's comment regarding the other famous mountain resort town in the Canadian Rockies. "Banff, Be Aware, Nothing is For Free". Jasper has a reason to exist other than cater to tourists, Banff does not.

For many years, the CN/Via station at Jasper has also served as a bus depot. Many tourists arrive by train and transfer to tour buses to view the mountains and often transfer south to Banff. CN also built a large resort just outside of town called the Jasper Park Lodge. CN operated sightseeing buses but eventually their competition from Banff, Brewster Transportation took over most sightseeing in the park. A newcomer Sundog tours offers sightseeing also.

Is the small hobby/gift shop still in the Jasper depot?

I have always enjoyed our family visits to Jasper. It is usually the pinnacle of our vacation that starts in Jackson Hole, WY in the Tetons. Then progresses north thru Yellowstone, Livingston, Flat Head Lake, Glacier NP, Banff, Lake Louise, the Athabasca Ice Fields and Jasper.

We have done variations of this trip with it starting as far south as Salt Lake City to include the Golden Spike Historic Site and another started in Seattle with a circle trip via Vancouver, Whistler, Lillooet, Kamloops, Jasper to Glacier with a trip along the Columbia River Gorge back to Seattle.

The railroad action in Jasper has always been nice on our visits. I have seen 20+ car Canadians there. I also have a photo of three observation cars side by side in Jasper, two Park Series on Canadian and Skeena with the AEE observation next to them. The Skeena had been held in town an extra day due to a landslide and the AEE equipment was on the National Park trains they ran. That was the probably the only spot in North America where the opportunity to see three active observations side by side existed.

On our last visit to Jasper we tried to go to the hot springs to the NE of town. We still laugh about that try as there were so many people packed in the pools we decided to pass on that experience. The density of folks in the pool reminded me of all the cows that stand in the small pasture ponds on very hot summer days here in the Southeastern USA.

Jay

garr Wrote:
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> Is the small hobby/gift shop still in the Jasper
> depot?

Yes. About 15 years ago, ownership of the station was transferred from CN to Jasper National Park, with Via,Rocky Mountaineer , Hertz and the coffee/hobby shop as tenants. The station has been designated as a Canadian Heritage site. It was built in the 1920's, replacing a Grand Trunk Pacific structure which burned down. CN operations were transferred to a new resthouse/yard office across the yard.

Here is the plaque in memory of Sir Henry Thornton, CEO of the CN between 1922 and 1932.

Thornton started on the Pennsylvania and became a manager on the Long Island Railroad. He then went to the Great Eastern Railway in the UK, and served with the British Army in WW1. He was knighted for his services. Following the creation of the Canadian National Railways in 1923, he was chosen to reorganise the several bankrupt components into a single transcontinental railway.

One of his accomplishments was the "Montreal Agreement" between the CNR and its employees which merged the different seniority rosters,and work rules in an equitable manner involving the unions. Massive portions of the Canadian Northern, National Transcontinental, and Grand Trunk/Grand Trunk Pacific were downgraded or abandoned.

Prior to the creation of CN, Jasper was called Fitzhugh and was a Division point on the GTP. The Canadian Northern station and main line was a few hundred feet south of the GTP yard and main line. The CNor had a Division point at Lucerne, twenty or so miles west in the Yellowhead Pass. With the creation of CN, Lucerne and most of the CNor was abandoned between Edmonton AB. and Red Pass BC.

There is evidence that Charles Melville Hays of the GTR had plans to develop Fitzhugh as a tourist resort, and plans exist for a Chateau style hotel designed by Francis Rattenbury (architect of the Empress Hotel in Victoria). Hays went down with the "Titanic", and plans for Fitzhugh (Jasper) went on hold. Meanwhile, Banff Park and CP were developing the mountain resorts to the south and gradually expanding north to the Columbia Icefields.

Thornton saw the potential for a resort at Jasper, and developed the Jasper Park Lodge just east of town. The JPL is unique among the railway hotels in the Canadian Rockies as it is a collection of cabins around a central dining hall surrounded by a golf course.

The abandoned CNor became a pioneer highway through the Yellowhead Pass. Canada used prisoners of war during WW2 to build the "Icefields Parkway" from Jasper south to Lake Louise.

Well into the 1960's, most tourists accessed Jasper by train, and the coach tracks had many US sleeping cars stored during the summer.

Passenger trains remain a way that tourists come to enjoy Jasper.

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eg, There was a bicycle at Jasper's depot prior to our departure (VIA -> Toronto) last July. Have a pic of it somewhere on this 'outer; will post it if I can locate it.