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McCulloch's Wonder Kettle Valley Railway by Barrie Sanford Hard Cover
McCullochs Wonder Kettle Valley Railway By Barrie Sanford
Hard Cover
Copyright 1977
The Story of the Kettle Valley Railway
260 Pages Indexed
CONTENTS
Introduction 9
Chapter 1 Coast-to-Kootenay: A Dream 11
Chapter 2 Empire Building 26
Chapter 3 Mountains, Men and Paper Railroads 46
Chapter 4 The Race for Republic 60
Chapter 5 Makeshift & Visionary 72
Chapter 6 Steel Trail to Nicola 80
Chapter 7 Northwest Nemesis105
Chapter 8 Disciples of Destiny 117
Chapter 9 Bridging the Gap 131
Chapter 10 Death Duel at Coquihalla Pass 148
Chapter 11 The Dream Fulfilled 181
Chapter 12 Steel Rails and Iron Men201
Chapter 13 Coming of Age 224
Chapter 14 End of the line 238
Corporate Abbreviations and Affiliations 243
Footnotes 244
Selected Bibliography257
Acknowledgement258
Index 259
ILLUSTRATIONS
Maps
Southern British Columbia and the American Northwest 22
Dewdney Surveys 57
Railways of the Boundary District 65
Grand Forks 69
CPR Nicola Branch101
Railway Surveys Merritt-Penticton 120
Railway Surveys Penticton-Midway122
Railway Surveys Coquihalla Pass 154
The Kettle Valley Railway 195
Kettle Valley Railway Profile 197
Photographs
Section 1 Page 81
Section 1 page 161
INTRODUCTION
Ninety miles east of Vancouver in the quiet community of Hope there used to be a small wooden-frame railway station nestled amid a grove of fir trees at the north end of Third Avenue. It was hardly an unusual station in outward appearances. Its architectural lines were pleasing, but nonetheless utilitarian and without embellishment. A pair of red mail boxes, one marked "East" and the other marked "West", hung by the doorway. Next to them a faded blackboard showed all trains to be "OT". A brace of train order hoops dangled from a wooden peg next to the station bay window, while overhead a pair of brightly painted red and white semaphore signals pointed skyward. It was, in every appearance, just another one of the many thousand small town railway stations once scattered across this broad land. Even the tuscan red paint with which the station was chalked - well, who could say that that paint has not been as much a part of the Canadian heritage as fearless Mounties and scarlet maple leaves?
Yet that modest little station in Hope was not just another small town railway station. This was the first station on the Kettle Valley Railway and if one were to ask why that fact should be of any significance he had only to look eastward beyond the station platform to find his answer. There, directly to the east of the station, a massive wall of mountains thrust upwards abruptly from the valley floor, an awesome and imposing monument of nature's power. Faced by this rugged mountain barrier, the Canadian Pacific Railway, having followed the easy valley of the Fraser River east from Vancouver, turned northward here at Hope and continued along that river's natural pathway to circuitously reach eastward. The Canadian National Railways and the TransCanada Highway, when they followed years later, did likewise. By going northward before resuming the intended eastward journey, they all skirted this mountain barrier. However, the tracks leading away from that so ordinary looking station in Hope did not go north. They went eastward, across the mountains the other two railways and the highway had forsaken. It was destined, therefore, that this could be no ordinary railway.
But the Kettle Valley Railway as even mew than just an extraordinary railway. Although now virtually forgotten, the planning and construction of this railway was once the dominant issue of concern in British Columbia and for a full quarter of a century hardly a week passed in which news of this railway did not command front page coverage in newspapers throughout the province. Forgotten too are the half dozen governments which rose or fell largely on issues centered around this railway. And when, after years of tumultuous political and corporate struggle, construction of the railway was finally started the geographical obstacles to be overcome were almost without parallel in the history of Canadian railway construction. Even veteran builders of the much renowned Canadian Pacific Railway were staggered by the immensity of the undertaking. Indeed, many said that the Kettle Valley Railway line across these mountains to the east of Hope was the most difficult and expensive piece of trackage ever built on the face of the earth unbelievable? Some people might say so but not those who rode this railway. Those who rode the Kettle Valley Railway - every cliff-clinging, heart-chilling mile of it - became believers. This was a railway like no other.
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