Coquihalla Railway Link

The Coquihalla railway link, operated by the Kettle Valley Railway (KV), a Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) subsidiary, connected the Coquihalla Summit and Hope in southwestern British Columbia. This standard gauge trackage, which followed the Coquihalla River through the North Cascades, formed the greater part of the KV Coquihalla Subdivision.

Proposals and planning

During surveys for a transcontinental railway route in the 1870s, Sandford Fleming estimated of aggregate tunnelling and severe gradients would be required for a Coquihalla route.

When surveying alternative east–west routes over the passes (namely Allison (longest), Coquihalla, and Railroad (shortest)) in 1902, Edgar Dewdney rejected all of them in favour of rails via Spences Bridge. Around 1900, the Columbia and Western Railway (C&W), a CP subsidiary, had projected a line to connect Princeton and Penticton via Keremeos, but this never eventuated. CP's Thomas Shaughnessy claimed he would build a direct Kootenays to the coast line, but the chosen route was more suited to local traffic. Chief engineer Andrew McCulloch was not given the freedom to select the optimal route.

By 1910, the CP and Great Northern Railway (GN), had each surveyed routes through the Coquihalla canyon. GN's James J. Hill planned a tunnel under the mountain between Tulameen and Portia, because negotiating Railroad Pass without a tunnel was impractical. Exiting on the east side of the Coquihalla River, this tunnel would not have interfered with earlier and later trails and roads. Extreme weather proved to make the upper Coquihalla canyon extremely expensive to maintain. Such a tunnel would not only protect against these weather-related issues but would be shorter. After calling for tenders, GN ultimately chose the longer Coquihalla Pass route instead.

The CP route via Osprey Lake ( Bankeir) and Brookmere was not optimal. A sounder choice would have been southwest to the Similkameen River and northwest to a Railroad Pass tunnel. To bring into being this tunnel option, a compromise between CP and GN should have been forced upon both parties earlier. Instead, the CP and GN conflicts over the narrow Coquihalla right-of-way triggered years of legal claims. In November 1913, they signed the Coquihalla Agreement, whereby CP would build and maintain the Coquihalla line, but GN would receive running rights. In early 1914, they signed the Tulameen Agreement, whereby GN would be responsible for Princeton–Brookmere, upon which CP would have running rights.

In 1937, John Sullivan wrote to McCulloch, both retired senior CP employees, stating, "Of all the blunders in railway building history the CPR's southern British Columbia rail line (namely the KV) is the greatest".

Construction

In harsh weather, scree forms an unstable building base. In the upper canyon, the railbed lay at the transition from semi-solid rock to scree. The latter provided the outer part of the rail bed, while the inner part was cut from the rock face. Construction crews returning in spring 1916 needed first to repair much of the 1915 construction work that had been destroyed by slides over the winter.

The maximum gradient was 2.2 per cent. Construction costs were $136,000 per mile, five times the average cost for Canadian railways in 1913. One particular mile in the upper canyon cost $300,000, being one of the most expensive miles of railway built up to that time. The provincial construction subsidy was $10,000 per mile.

The last spike on the KV was driven in July 1916 east of the tunnel adjacent to the Ladner Creek bridge.

Operation and maintenance

Regular passenger service began at the end of July 1916. Eastbound trains took on pusher engines at Hope.

Washouts and slides closed the Coquihalla during December 1917–May 1918, January–May 1921, 2 to 4 months in 1930s, and 6 months in 1938–39. During World War II, Japanese Canadians from the Tashme Incarceration Camp formed a bridge and building maintenance gang. Having barely recovered from the damage of the previous winter, the line again closed in fall 1949.

In 1926, CP was making plans to abandon the Coquihalla route, following a series of slides. Even if an abandonment received government approval, CP might have been required to return government construction subsidies and would also forfeit the annual fee paid by GN. When slides and washouts in 1932 resurrected thoughts of abandonment, the ongoing GN payments were the deciding factor. Severe weather damage in early 1939 raised concerns again, but the likelihood of an escalating war in Europe, which would increase rail traffic, instead prompted extensive upgrades.

For a line it had never commercially used, GN had paid CP $150,000 annually since 1916, and CP had paid GN $60,000 annually for actual use. In 1944–45, to end such payments, GN paid $4,500,000 to CP to terminate the Coquihalla Agreement. In turn, CP paid GN $1,500,000 to terminate the Tulameen Agreement and acquired that leg.

During World War II, bulldozers were introduced for snow clearing, which proved superior to the prior combination of rotary and wedge plows. In addition, substandard snowsheds were removed rather than replaced, resulting in 10 of the original 15 sheds being demolished over an eight-year period.

Not a single passenger was killed during the lifetime of the railway. A speeder checking for slides and washouts preceded every passenger train through the Coquihalla Pass. In winter, a plow train preceded the speeder. In addition, foot patrols checked the whole route every day.

In 1952, passenger train schedules were changed by 12 hours, meaning the Coquihalla was travelled during daylight. In 1954, the passenger schedule reverted to night time travel through the area. After the November 1959 slides and washouts in the vicinity of Jessica, passenger service through the Coquihalla permanently ceased that month.

Timetables

Infrastructure and incidents

Epilogue

The massive capital investment of the difficult construction was never remotely recovered.

In 1960, Trans Mountain Pipeline bought the Brodie–Jessica right-of-way. That year, work trains, operating from each side of the blockage, collected employee and CP possessions. In 1961, CP announced plans to formally abandon the route, which received government approval that summer. Rails were lifted westward from Mile 38.3 to Hope in August 1961 and eastward from the washout to Boston Bar Creek in September and October. The balance were removed in 1962. Trans Mountain Pipeline built a private road north from Portia. largely upon the former rail bed.

In October 1961, KV passenger trains terminated at Spences Bridge in the middle of the night for transfers to a main line connection, instead of terminating at Vancouver.

The surviving rail bed forms part of the Kettle Valley Rail Trail segment of the Trans Canada Trail.

Footnotes

References

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{{coord missing, British Columbia

Canadian Pacific Railway stations in British Columbia