There’s an end table in my living room where I keep a small collection of inspiration: railroad photography books that I often flip through when trying to come up with new ideas. Among them are the great volumes of railroad photography: Richard Steinheimer’s “A Passion For Trains,” O. Winston Link’s “Life Along The Line” and David Plowden’s “Requiem For Steam.” Steinheimer, Link and Plowden are almost all guaranteed spots on the Mount Rushmore of railroad photographers. But they are not the only ones who have earned spots in my book collection. Right next to them is another favorite, “Nicholas Morant’s Canadian Pacific.”
Morant was the CP’s company photographer for 44 years and spent decades shooting the railroad’s most famous section between Banff, Alberta, and Field, British Columbia. Among his favorite locations was an s-curve along the Bow River east of Lake Louise. Morant returned to the spot so many times that it was soon named after him and today Parks Canada maintains an interpretive sign about the photographer.
As a diehard CP fan (I gained an appreciation for the CP shooting it as a kid in Maine and Vermont), Morant’s Curve has always been high on my list of “must see” locations. So this summer, when my Uncle Dave and I were planning a weekend trip to the CP main, I knew I had to shoot a train at the curve.
On the first morning of our trip, we were at Field shortly after dawn as an eastbound grain train got a new crew. As the grain train pulled out of town, the sun rose over the mountains and it appeared that the train might arrive at Morant’s Curve in perfect morning light. "This might actually happen!" I thought to myself as we chased the train east. After getting the train east of Field, my uncle and I decided to head straight for Lake Louise to make sure we got in position with plenty of time to spare. As I turned off the Trans-Canada Highway I again thought about how lucky we were; the sun was out and we had an eastbound running at the perfect time. "Nothing can stop us now," I excitedly declared as we turned on the Bow Valley Parkway just as a Parks Canada ranger was putting up a road lock and a sign that said "closed."
"Ahhhh, what's going on?" I asked.
"Oh, sorry, there's a bike race today so the road is closed to cars. You can drive it tomorrow though!"
We did return the following day, but alas, there were no eastbound freights to help make that perfect picture. Instead, we got a going away shot of the Rocky Mountaineer on its journey west. It’s not a bad shot – in fact it remains one of my favorites from 2016 because it reinforces another lesson from the greats: persistence. Morant probably took hundreds of images at that curve east of Lake Louise and I’m sure there were a few duds. But what made Morant, Steinheimer, Link and Plowden great was that they went back to the same locations time and time again until they got the shot just right.
As we enter 2017, I’m already looking at the calendar and planning a return to Morant’s Curve, in hopes of enjoying the view those bikers saw back in August. Here's hoping you're able to get back to some favorite locations in the New Year.
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