Rocky Mountain Express Page #2

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There were two routes through

the mountains being considered:

a northern route

recommended by the surveyors,

and a southern route

considered much more difficult

by virtually everyone.

A fateful, perhaps reckless,

decision was made,

by the railway and government,

to gamble

on this southern route,

where no passes

were yet known to exist.

An American surveyor

by the name of A. B. Rogers

had convinced many,

including Van Horne,

that he could find

a southern pass

through the Selkirks.

The future

of the Canadian Pacific

was now in the hands

of two Americans.

One, a brilliant leader

and gambler,

the other, a stubborn surveyor

considered wildly eccentric.

Pa'?

(water rushing)

Rogers and his guides only

traveled in the spring

and summer months up the western

face of the Selkirks.

Ominously,

they found no evidence

that humans of any kind

had ever ventured amongst

these almost vertical slopes.

In the summer of 1882,

when Rogers declared

he had discovered

a viable railroad pass,

he did not fully appreciate

the nature of the beast

that would come

to bear his name.

When engineers and tracklayers

arrived the following season,

at the foot of the Selkirks,

they were appalled

by what Rogers

had declared a pass.

They would have to build

massive looping trestles

to give the railway distance

to lessen the steep climb

up the mountain face.

For the men working here,

it was a bad omen.

The trestles were frail,

and prone to fire in the summer

and avalanches in winter.

They were soon replaced

with stone pillars,

and eventually,

those too were abandoned.

(steam hisses)

In February of 1910,

the chief engineer

wrote to Van Horne:

"There has been

a terrible accident:

"many men died last night in the

valley of the lllecillewaet.

The rest are afraid."

In the early years,

this short stretch of track

would threaten

the very survival

of the entire railway.

Some thought Rogers

had been more than eccentric.

His ego had led him to promote

a route of total madness.

Railway surveyors seek

the lowest possible route

through the mountains,

like the rivers

they often parallel.

In Rogers Pass,

they used side canyons

to build loops,

lengthening the line

to give trains more distance

to climb the mountain.

To lower the grade further

would require tunnels,

at vastly greater expense.

In 1914, work began

on the five mile

Connaught tunnel,

the longest in North America.

This would reduce the grades

on the old route

and hide the line

from relentless avalanches.

The nine-mile

Mount McDonald tunnel

followed in the 1980s,

further reducing the grades.

It would take the CPR 100 years

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