Friday 13th July 2012 ­ Rocky Mountaineer ­The Route to Kamloops

The Rocky Mountaineer (RM) makes the journey east 3 times a week on Monday, Wednesday & Friday.  Today we would be travelling 285 miles at a stately 30 – 40mph to Kamloops drawn by two 3,000 horsepower locomotives. Both the “First Passage to the West” and the “Journey Through the Clouds” travel along the same route from Vancouver to Kamloops.   This morning we would follow Canadian Pacific Rail Tracks (CP) through the Cascade and Thompson subdivisions – a subdivision represents a major operational control section of the railway that governs crew changes etc. 

The CP Rail line was completed in 1885 and some 30 years before its rival, the Canadian National Railway (CN Rail). As the first, CPRail chose the easiest route through the canyons.  Since there wasn’t room to build a second set of tracks on the same side of the river, CN Rail was forced to build their track on the more difficult side of the canyon.  When CP Rail built its bridge across the Fraser River so did CN Rail.  The two rail companies continued as competitors until the 1960s when they agreed to co-operate and today the CP Rail Track is dedicated to freight travelling west and the CN Rail track tofreight travelling east - apart from the Rocky Mountaineer there are no passenger trains on these routes.

It was fascinating to watch great lengths of train of up to 200 cars stretching for over a mile and pulled by perhaps 3 huge locomotives up front, another about two-thirds of way through the train and perhaps another on the back, thread their steady way along the sides of the Fraser River Canyon.  It was almost compulsive to count the cars although something always seemed to distract my attention atsome point so the maximum count I got to was 130 cars.

The first part of our journey took us through the lush green of the lower reaches of the Fraser River and on through its canyon to the narrowest part of the river at  Hell’s Gate.  As much as 200m gallons of water a minute pound through the 110 ft wide gorge and because of the heavy rain that BC had experienced over the previous two weeks probably even more was thundering through this gorge today.

The Fraser River is 850 miles long and stretches form its headwaters in the Rockies to the Strait of Georgia at Vancouver.  Besides the essential industries that lineits banks the Fraser River is home to one of C’s largest salmon runs.  It is mainly cars and other manufactured goods that travel west whilst the grain from the vast Canadian prairies travels east bound for China and Asia.

By mid-afternoon we had reached Lytton where the Fraser and Thompson Rivers meet – their waters showing a sharp delineation as the clear waters of the Thompson river meet with the sediment carrying, glacier fed waters of the Fraser River.  Train spotting gave way to Bald Eagle and Osprey spotting for the last 90 miles to our overnight destination of Kamloops.

As you can imagine the scenery was spectacular as we wound our way along the respective canyon edges.  Because of the rain many of the rapids had disappeared submerging the dangerous rocks and many of the communities along the trackside had been flooded although this had not dampened the spirits of the many locals who lined up at the various halts and stops to wave the train through.  Such places with wonderful sounding names has Hope, Chilliwack, Skuzzy Creek, Rainbow Canyon, Avalanche Alley, the Jaws of Death Gorge and many more.