We started the day early, because we were being picked up at 7am for our 2 days train journey back to Vancouver on the Rocky Mountaineer. The train is exclusively a sightseeing train - it really does not serve as a passager train to go from point A to point B, as it is very slow on purpose. What it provides is a luxurious and relaxed way to see a lot of great scenery and possibly wild life, while drinking fancy cocktails and eating gourmet meals. I have put a lot of scenery pictures at the end of the blog, because of course there are a million of them, but this is just a taste.
We did see quite a few black bears along the rails, but it’s hard to take pictures from a moving train. Here are the two best ones I manage to take.
We went (again) from Banff to Lake Louise, and then continued West toward Kamloop, where we will spend the night.
One fascinating feature of the rail just west of Lake Louise is the spiral tunnel. When the railway was first developed in the late 1800’s, one major problem was the 4.5% slope between Lake Louise and the small town of Fields. Train kept derailing, and since they were such an important part of the West development, a solution had to be found. For a while, they would just unload passagers in lake Louise, put them on horse drawn carriages to field, while the train would barrel downhill and take its chances…. After several death and major equipment destruction, it was decided that the spiral tunnel would be built: these already existed in Switzerland, and engineers were brought from there. As the name indicates, the spiral tunnels literally make spirals down the mountain, the first one turning 290 degrees while dropping 50 feet, the second one turning 230 degrees and dropping 56 feet. Here is a freight train (see from above where we are coming from) both entering and exiting the tunnels - the freight trains are very long, so you can see both ends at the same time). These were built in 1907, starting at both ends at the same time, meeting in the middle - they came within 2 inches of each other, which, given the technology of the time is a remarkable achievements. Anyway- this made it possible to drop the grade to 2% and at last made passager train safe.
This is a picture of cathedral mountain, which is one of the mountain the tunnels go through. We had to wait a bit at the entrance of the tunnel because of the freight train are very (there is only one track through).
We passed the little town of Fields - where we had our very late lunch yesterday, and waved at them fondly.
We continued on along the Kicking Horse gorge- the river was kicking today!, weaving in an out of tunnels through the mountain.
A lot of the tracks, and of Route 1, which parallel each other, are in dangerous avalanche areas. So there are several places that are covered, both to avoid the known avalanche tracks, and to provide shelter in case there is one, and the train or cars need to wait for a long time.
We then started following the Columbia river, one of the most important river in North America: It has multiple dams that are capable of providing 1/3 of the electricity in the US. It starts here in the Rockies and ends in Oregon.
We went through a brief storm, and then the sun came back, just in time for our ride along the very large lake Shuswap - it has little communities and summer cottages all along it, and it is the tradition for everyone to stop when the train passes by and wave - and I mean everyone! We did not see a single person who was not waving. It was lovely!
We passed the historically important site of Craigchaile (sp?), where the last tie of the railroad was set, finishing the full crossing of Canadian railway. It always finally united all of Canada, as British Columbia put having the end to end railroad as a condition to formally join Canada.
As we continued toward Kamploops, the mountains were replaced by dried hills (Kapmloops is in the only desert if region of canada), and the plains become agricultural, with corn fields and cattle. Kamploops, which we saw on the way in, is still ugly, but interesting. But I’ll talk about that tomorrow, because now I’m tired…..
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