Where did the CP connect with the Kettle Valley Railway? Did any other railways connect with the KVR?
A quick search on Wikipedia gives you everything you want to know.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettle_Valley_Railway
I rode the steam train excursion out of Summerland a few years back, super nice ride.
Brian (IA) http://blhanel.rrpicturearchives.net.
I read it, but it simply states "CP to Grand Forks".. Article appears to be ambiguous about whether the connection was Midway, Grand Forks or maybe Castlegar.. I'm guessing it was likely Castlegar as that was the biggest town in the area.
Legally the Kettle Valley Railway starts at Midway and runs west. But in an actual operating sense, Midway was simply a regular crew change point, being the away from home terminal of crews based in Nelson and Penticton. Quite likely the accountants had some means of assigning income, but that would have been internal since both sides were simply "paper railways" and part of the CPR.
From Calgary west to Midway via the Crownsnest Pass.. and then on to Vancouver. In the 1950s CP upgraded the Kettle Valley to make it an alternative to the Laggan/Mountain/Shushwap/Thompson/Cascade subdivsions line to the North. Not sure why that didn't work out as Crowsnest is a better pass than Kicking Horse is, and the line in general appears to be less arduous as well, with no need for spiral tunnels.
My recollection is that the arduous grades were in the Penticton area.
Nothing exceeding 4.5%! And lots of tunnels and bridges which added to the railway's interest.
I believe the route via Calgary and the Kicking Horse Pass was chosen not because of preferable grades, but because it had fewer locations with 2% grades than the original Crowsnest survey, southern Alberta has many deep river valleys and the CP mainline still faces a steep grade at Medicine Hat.
The Lethbridge Viaduct was built as part of a bypass project that eliminated the toughest stretch of track through that area, the original grade is still visible on Google Earth if one knows where to look.
The former KVR line had several 2 to 2.4% grades in both directions, proved more expensive to maintain (especially in Coquihalla Pass) and was never signalled. A series of major washouts proved to be the final straw, even all those 'second mainline' projects couldn't tame mother nature. CP decided to invest as much as possible in mainline upgrades like CTC and line relocations that eventually ended up reducing the westbound ruling grade to only 1% from Calgary to Vancouver.
The KVR was also never upgraded with heavier rail, and could not handle the large 6-axle diesels that started arriving in the mid-1960s, ending the possibility of any future use for diverted mainline traffic.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Ulrich From Calgary west to Midway via the Crownsnest Pass.. and then on to Vancouver. In the 1950s CP upgraded the Kettle Valley to make it an alternative to the Laggan/Mountain/Shushwap/Thompson/Cascade subdivsions line to the North. Not sure why that didn't work out as Crowsnest is a better pass than Kicking Horse is, and the line in general appears to be less arduous as well, with no need for spiral tunnels.
The route from Medicine Hat through the Crowsnest Pass and Kettle Valley Railway is something like 100 miles longer than the present main line. Financial constraints at the time meant the shortest possible route was obligatory and even so the company teetered on the edge of collapse several times before the CPR was completed.
Mountain ranges forced the southern route to zigzag north and south to find feasible passes, and the profile looks more like a crosscut saw especially west of Castlegar. Farron Hill, Eholt, then McCulloch, next Osprey summit and finally the Coquihalla are just some of the miles and miles of 2% grades. It was not until around 1930 that the line became continuous after blasting a grade along Kootenay Lake from Kootenay Landing to Proctor; previous to that a 30 mile ferry ride was required.
BC did a great thing by preserving the KVR right of way for recreatonal use. On my bucket shortlist is to cycle the entire length of it..
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