Canadian Railroads > Eastbound near Jasper 1973

An eastbound east of Jasper in May 1973.

Robert Morris
Dunsmuir, CA
Robert Morris Photography

---

West of Edmonton AB to Red Pass BC, during WW1 and later, after the collapse of the Canadian Northern, the Canadian Government Railway and later Canadian National abandoned one of the near paralell main lines of the CNor and the Grand Trunk Pacific.

Usually it was the CNor which was removed, but from near Hinton to the location in this picture, the CNor was retained and the GTP abandoned. The current Highway 16 occupies
the former GTP for several miles.

Although the current bridge carries the tracks over a road, before the lines were consolidated, the GTP crossed under the CNor , changing from the south side of the valley to the north.

Jasper was called Fitzhugh and in the very early days was just a GTP division point. The Grand Trunk Pacific had plans for a mountain resort based around the Miette Hot Springs east of Jasper, but those plans died when C.M.Hays , the CEO was lost on the "Titanic"

 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/06/19 10:53 by eminence_grise.

That's one heck of a rock in the background. Nice catch.

Very nice photo.

Nice shot. Lots of trees !!
Doug

TCnR Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> That's one heck of a rock in the background. Nice
> catch.

That "heck of a rock" in the background is The Palisade, comprising a typical Front Ranges outcrop of the Palliser Formation, a Devonian carbonate unit. Sorry, I don't often get to use my geology chops in a TO post. The spellings are correct, by the way, Palisade being a fortress, and Palliser named after a person. Nice shot, too, Robert! Real nostalgia for noodle SD40s without d/b, and open bilevel and trilevel auto racks.
Fred



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/06/19 13:11 by feclark.

eminence_grise Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> West of Edmonton AB to Red Pass BC, during WW1 and
> later, after the collapse of the Canadian
> Northern, the Canadian Government Railway and
> later Canadian National abandoned one of the near
> paralell main lines of the CNor and the Grand
> Trunk Pacific.
>
> Usually it was the CNor which was removed, but
> from near Hinton to the location in this picture,
> the CNor was retained and the GTP abandoned. The
> current Highway 16 occupies
> the former GTP for several miles.
>
> Although the current bridge carries the tracks
> over a road, before the lines were consolidated,
> the GTP crossed under the CNor , changing from the
> south side of the valley to the north.
>
> Jasper was called Fitzhugh and in the very early
> days was just a GTP division point. The Grand
> Trunk Pacific had plans for a mountain resort
> based around the Miette Hot Springs east of
> Jasper, but those plans died when C.M.Hays , the
> CEO was lost on the "Titanic"
>
>  

Wow— thanks, Phil, for all the background, and gosh, what if the Titanic had not sunk?!? Would we still have an old GTP resort to this day similar to the CP’s Banff one ?!? Fun to conjecture...

Posted from iPhone

The GTP had plans for both Fitzhugh (Jasper) and Prince Rupert for hotels.

They were to be designed by Rattenbury, the architect who designed the CP "Empress" hotel in Victoria. He made architects drawings for both locations. The resort near Jasper would have been south and east of Jasper around the Miette Hot Springs.  The concept of a resort hotel for Jasper didn't die with CM Hays, and Henry Thornton, CEO on the CN promoted the idea of the Jasper Park Lodge.

Thornton 's concept was for a "rustic lodge" with a central reception area and a variety of cottages and cabins around a lake and a golf course, more like some of the resorts around Glacier Park, Montana.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/07/19 16:40 by eminence_grise.