I did a google search on the Macdonald tunnel but found nothing relating to a helix. I do remember years ago reading about a new tunnel being cut under some mountains in Canada that had a helix inside the mountain as part of its route. Was it the Macdonald or another tunnel?
I believe you are thinking about CP’s Spiral Tunnels to the east in Kicking Horse Pass through the Rockies. Mt. MacDonald Tunnel is in Rogers Pass through the Selkirks.
I have seen some of these on various things in the past. Does anyone know of pictures or video of trains going through these loops?
The MacDonald Tunnel on Rogers Pass is nearly straight. As others have said the Upper and Lower Spiral Tunnels on CP’s Kicking Horse Pass are closer to a Helix. I consider a tunnel to be a Helix if you have more than 360 degrees of curvature inside the tunnel. I don’t know of any of these in the world, but there is something very close on the Swiss Rhaetische Bahn’s Albula Pass line where two spiral tunnels overlap, with each having approximately 270 degrees of curvature ( each is 3/4 of a complete circle). On this section the train is climbing a 3.5 % grade. The Albula Pass line has 4 spiral tunnels, with 3 of them in a distance of less than 3 miles.
I have heard that someone wanted to cut down some trees to provide photo ops of the tunnel for tourists. The government or railroad will not let them. Can you elaborate?
The viewpoint for the Lower Spiral Tunnel is located at a roadside pulloff from the TransCanada Hwy. When the TransCanada highway was upgraded and the viewpoint was built the construction caused the removal of the trees between the highway and the Tunnel. This area is inside Canada’s Yoho National Park. In the years since this construction work was done new trees have grown up from tiny saplings to large mature trees and the view of the tunnel is now obscured. Parks Canada (their equivilent to our National Park Service) has prohibited the cutting of trees within the Park for purposes solely for improving the view. Cutting is allowed for safety improvements and such.
Yes! Greg Scholl Video Productions once did a whole series on railroading in western Canada, and this series of video tapes included “Cab Ride Over Kicking Horse Pass”. This tape includes some very good footage of CP Rail trains passing through the famous Spiral Tunnels. The tape that I have is 77 minutes in length, and may now be available in a DVD format.
CANADIANPACIFIC2816
CP Rail Public Relations or Advertising Department took many photos of all CP Rail Trains on these Spiral Tunnels. There is a photo of a CP Rail Train passing over itself in one of those big Railroads of North America type books that covers railroads in words and photos. They are using mostly publicity photos.
Some place that has Canadian Stock Photos or a Canadian Photo Archive would have these classic photos.
Andrew
Andrew, you mentioned the CP Rail Public Relations and Advertising Department. For a good many years that department’s chief photographer was Nicholas Morant. Within the last three years I acquired a book about Morant’s photography on the Canadian Pacific Railway. “Nicholas Morant’s Canadian Pacific” The author is J.F. Garden, the publisher is Footprint Publishing of Revelstoke, British Columbia.
This book is a little better than 450 pages in length and I would recommend it to anyone who can find a copy of it anywhere. I purchased my copy through an eBay auction. It’s got a lot of neat photos in it, both color and in black & white, and features shots that Nicholas Morant had made at both ends of the Spiral Tunnels on the Canadian Pacific Railway.
CANADIANPACIFIC2816
An article about the CP Rail McDonald Tunnel appeared in a 1988 issue of TRAINS.
You need to search through the yearly indexes of TRAINS magazine to find more CP related articles.
Andrew
WB Video’s “The Fifties Express” has some 1950’s color footage of Canadian Pacific trains at the spiral tunnel. It’s only a few minutes out of an hour long video, but still it has some nice scenery and is overall a good video. I assume this was put out recently in DVD, mine is VHS from the eighties.