Rocky Mountain Express Page #4

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he stopped the Spokane Flyer

bound for Washington...

...saving the lives

of hundreds of passengers.

He received an award

from the railroad of $25.

Roughly 90 souls

on the edge of town

were not so lucky.

They remain buried

under the slide to this day.

(wheels clacking)

There would be no easy route

through these mountains

after all,

but there is an easy stretch

along the Kicking Horse River

before the greatest

challenge of all--

the towering

Rocky Mountains ahead.

Pa'?

The railroad town of Field

is at the foot

of the steepest stretch

of track in the Rockies.

In 1886, the Baldwin Locomotive

Works of Philadelphia

designed a special series

of locomotives

to help move heavy trains

up and down the CPR's Big Hill.

These Consolidation-class

engines

were enormously successful,

except for number 314.

Descending the Big Hill in 1899,

314 ran away and jumped

the track, killing its crew.

Rebuilt and renumbered,

but this time

climbing the Big Hill,

it blew itself to pieces,

killing another crew.

Repaired again, it worked

up and down the Big Hill

for 30 more years,

all the time feared

and despised by its crews.

(engine chugging slowly)

Pa'?

(chugging faster)

The 20 miles ahead remain,

to this day,

among the most challenging

stretches of track

in all of railroading.

Pa'?

(chugging slows)

(metallic screech)

Pa'?

20 years

after the railway was opened,

the terrible grades

on the Big Hill were reduced

by one of the most famous

engineering projects

in the history of railroading--

the spiral tunnels.

The tunnels give the line

additional distance

to climb the steep western face

of the Rocky Mountains.

Through both an upper

and lower tunnel,

long freight trains cross

over themselves

by looping around

inside the mountain.

(engine chugging)

(hammer clanging)

The Last Spike was driven

at Craigellachie

in the fall of 1885--

an extraordinary accomplishment

for the tiny new country

of Canada.

(crowd cheering)

But soon after

transcontinental trains

began running from sea to sea...

(train whistle blows)

...it was apparent the railway

had profoundly miscalculated

one significant detail--

Winter.

(wind gusting, ice crackling)

(ice crackling, rumbling)

Virtually no one

had ever ventured

into Rogers Pass in the winter,

and for good reason.

It had among the deepest

known snowfalls in the world--

as much as 60 feet

in a single season.

(rumbling)

On February 28, 1910,

a gang of 60 men were working

to clear an avalanche

in the pass.

At midnight,

another slide came down

the opposite side of the valley

and killed all but one.

Most of the men were Japanese.

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