I wrote a good short story about this photo’s circumstances, click the thumbnail to check it out and see a larger picture!
For what it’s worth, the news said that the road was closed and they were thinking of airlifting food in, but soon after when I got there it was just a guy in a truck saying that we couldn’t go past Field, and the highway to the east was open.
WOW!! Thanks for sharing! I hope they now have supplies?!
Field never has supplies, but at least they got to drive east to do some shopping!
Great shot! The warmth of the headlights accentuates the cold everywhere else. I feel chilly.
NICE shot - Thanks for sharing !
Were the CPR operations impeded by concerns about avalanches on the tracks - or was that effect mostly from the lack of highway access ?
[:-,] [WARNING: Heavy Sarcasm Ahead ! ] You know, back in the day there was a technology to deal with such situations - it was called a “T-R-A-I-N”, and it came in several varieties - “freight”, “passenger”, and a special kind called a “mixed train”, which had cars of both types in it. There were also special kinds of cars called “combines” - short for “combination car” which was often part baggage car and part passenger car. Here’s a link to a photo of one, that used to run on the CP - self-propelled, even - it was called a “Dayliner”, and both it and the mixed trains often ran into the far reaches of Canada where there were no roads, navigable waterways, or airstrips - imagine that !
http://www.abcentralrailway.com/new.html
http://www.abcentralrailway.com/images/dayliner.jpg
I’ll bet that enough supplies for Field for a week - it’s only about 200 people, per the town’s website - and many of those badly needed CPR crews could fit into the respective sections of one of those cars. Probably also some people here who remember how that was done, and would be willing to show someone how if they were asked nicely, to avoid all that disruption . . . [:-^]
I posted information and opinion on this problem a couple of days ago on the Flat Wheel Cafe thread. Nice photo Matthew, and nice to see that equipment again Paul.
Bruce
I thought you and maybe Kootenay Central would enjoy that, Bruce.
I found your post - 01-21-2011, near the bottom of Page 15 of 18 (presently), at:
http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/forums/t/184816.aspx?PageIndex=15
Interesting observartions. There’s a real quandrary for the management - how to best prepare, staff, and ‘gear-up’ for a contingency event that’s extremely disruptive and expensive when it does occur and to cope with, but is also rare, irregular, and unpredictable much in advance of its occurrence, and when technology, society and its resources are continually changing and evolving . . . ? ? ?
I read your posts in that thread, Bruce, and I have to say that I agree - Living in Canada as we happen to, we should be prepared for the eventuality of snow, even if it’s in the form of a rusting old backhoe bolted to a flatcar (or something similar!)
I have to say that I agree with the idea of running supplies in by train, I mean it HAS to be more economical than airlifting, eh?
Another ops problem that I was told about was that a lot of slide fences were tripped due to minor snowslides, and trains were operating at restricted speed due to that. Plus, you can really only deadhead one crew in per train, so getting enough crews to run plow extras or anything similar must have been a problem.
The plows for the Laggan Sub are based in Banff, so there would have been no problem getting crews to it. I understand the snowpack was highly unstable and you don’t want to have a second avalanche come down while the plow train is still clearing the track.
A couple of weeks ago we watched the helicopter drop charges on several of the avalanche paths on Mount Bosworth. That was before the recent multiple storms that caused all the problems; even so it was amazing to watch the resultant avalanches. CPR had a plow train waiting nearby just in case, but the avalanches did not reach the tracks in the valley floor on that occasion.
John
FYI - There’s a unit of the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery and other Canadian Forces units that are assigned to avalanche control duty in the Rogers Pass area, using ground-based field pieces such as howitzers and the like - it’s called Operation PALACI (I have no idea why, though). I did a quick search to see if my memory of this was at all correct, and stumbled into this pretty good web page, which specificially mentions the CP Rail lines in a couple of places - including at the bottom, about the ceremonial cannon firing at November’s 125th celebration of the Last Spike ceremony:
http://www.canadacom.forces.gc.ca/daily/archive-palaci-eng.asp
It doesn’t seem like dull duty, either, since they have to train to find each other in the event that avalanche debris reaches their firing points. And it looks like an upgrade from the C1 Howitzer to the C3 is in the works - whatever they are/ that means ?
Perhaps Crandell/ selector can add some insight from his experiences and contacts in the CF ?
EDIT/ P.S.: See also http://www.canadacom.forces.gc.ca/daily/archive-palaci09-eng.asp - lots of mentions of the 1910 avalanche disaster at Rogers Pass there, which killed 58 people. - PDN.
And that raises an interesting point. The CPR is well known for “sweating the assets”, yet in recent years sometimes it has become penny-wise and pound-foolish. I have always considered myself to be very fortunate to have seen some very ancient MOW equipment being used while I was growing up in the fifties and sixties. With proper routine maintenance, and the fact it was used every year, it lasted far longer than the designers ever imagined.
The point is moot now, but the equipment that could have been used for avalanche clean-up should have been kept in a condition where what had to be weather-tight was, exposed moving parts lubricated, and all of it protected from vandals by razor-wire compounds and junkyard dogs. And because as Paul mentions, it wouldn’t have had to be used every winter, so it should have been around for a long time.The future value of the money spent to do that has to be far less than the costs they are paying now in lost revenue and penalties. And with the rise of Asian inbound trade, those costs are only going to become more severe.
John, as you know the avalanche problem was on more than just the Laggan Sub. It extended all the way to Kamloops, and the crew availability problem along with it. And many more plows than the one at Banff were involved, but again fewer than they once had.
Having been over Roger’s Pass many times, I can say that none of the firing bases are on avalanche slopes, so it’s very unlikely they’ll be stuck in an avalanche that they caused - the biggest danger would be getting there and back!
[quote user=“cx500”]
The plows for the Laggan Sub are based in Banff, so there would have been no problem getting crews to it. I understand the sn
Speaking of ancient equipment, the consolidated stencil on the wedge plow being used showed a built date of 03-11. In two months time it will be 100 years old. The Jordan spreader behind was rather newer. Incidentally, power for the plow train was a CPR GP38-2 and a SOO SD60.
John
They should throw a big shindig for it like the 125 Anniversary at Craigellachie. Maybe they will have to take it to a car shop to have the date re-stenciled with a 19 in it.
Reminds me of a form we had in the stationary cupboard in Irricana. They weren’t Form 19’s or Clearances, but the date line was really interesting. Instead of ____________, 19 it had __________, 1 so you could type either an 8 or a 9!
Like I say, I consider myself fortunate to have grown up in a branchline station.
Bruce
You are! I mean, mainlines get all the boring power, and branchlines get the mish-mash - and frequently the crews are friendlier too! Did you manage to keep those forms? I bet a few museums might be interested…
I am sorry, Paul, I have only just encountered your post. I’m afraid I am well out of touch by now, and in any case, my metier was first in Armour (tanks and recce) and latterly in Industrial/Organizational Psych. During my tenure the Guns changed field howitzers at least twice, and I couldn’t tell you much about either replacement. No matter what they used, we referred to the Arty affectionatly as Drop Short. It was always a fear when they fired over our heads that a round would fall short. Happened once or twice.
Anyway, here is what I found:
http://www.artillery.net/beta/105c3/
The criterion is that it should be air-droppable, easily stripped and reassembed, and robust. Accurate doesn’t really count with the artillery…it is meant as an area control weapon. [:-,]
Crandell
We didn’t think to take any of those forms at the time and don’t think I haven’t thought about that decision more than once.
As to power, after steam left the line it was all Geep, all the time. MU’ed in the beginning, but singly for the last four or five years before we left. I can remember steam on the CN Calgary-Edmonton line, that also passed through town, but I was to young to remember types. After they dieselized it was a GMD-1 show.
As to the Crews, I have mentioned the conductors Mr. Taylor and Mr. Renfrew before, and they were very nice. I will have to tell more about them another time.
Bruce
I suppose it’s different for someone born with steam…and I should have realized that the ubiquitous geep would have ruled the branchlines just like GP38-2s rule them today. What did they use in the late steam era, 2-8-0s? 4-6-0s? That kind of thing?
Matt, sorry it took so long to get back to you. I had a busy weekend.
Ten Wheelers ruled the roost on the Mixed for most of the year. In the fall when people still bought coal for heating their homes it got a bit more interesting. They would use a very old Mikado, 5100 series, I think on extra coal drags. They also would use a small Pacific on coal drags, or sometimes on the Mixed depending on tonnages. The fall grain rush could make for a heavy Mixed train. When I asked my Dad about it he said maybe there were one or two more types, but he couldn’t remember.
My Dad passed away in 1992 from a long illness, and in the last year and a half of it I would go up to my parents place and he would tell many interesting stories of his days on the railway. I will relate one they got a chuckle out of.
In the nine years and two months my Dad worked for the CPR before moving there, Irricana was the first branch line station he had ever worked. He had spent his career on the Laggan and Red Deer Subs., with the exception of stints at Cassils and Claresholm for about five weeks total. Well, he had never seen power that small, and he didn’t know that the CPR even had power like that. He thought it would have been thrown into “the scrap” (his word for a garbage can) years earlier. They both laughed recalling that in the first few months there, Dad was often calling to Mom in the kitchen, “Come out here, you’ve got to see this!”
Like I said the 5100 Mikado was very old. But the most amazing sight they saw was a Ten Wheeler with what the crew called a Mother Hubbard Cab. It still had its’ original wooden cab! My Dad said it looked just like the engines in Western movies!. What had happened was, all during the 1930’s when there was little money for maintenance, was that as old engines came due for their major servi