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Bruce KellyBeautiful shots, at one of my favorite places. Did they finally reopen the back road along the south side of the railroad through there? A couple years ago, in the middle of summer, we were hoping to bring my in-laws to the Great Divide interpretive site (a stone's throw from where you shot these) so they could see how the stream literally splits, half the water flowing east, the other half flowing west. But the road into there was barricaded off at both sides. There was no mention of construction or any other explanation. Do you remember where the DPUs were placed in that potash train? Two in the middle, or one in the middle and one on the rear, or what? I've been seeing some changes in the DPU placement on potash that comes into the U.S. via Kingsgate, BC/Eastport, ID.
The road has now been closed for years. Not sure why, but I suspect the road needs some repairs and the powers-that-be want to re-engineer the road to modern highway standards, can't get a multi-million dollar budget approved, and refuse to just fix it as is. One of my pet peeves here in Canada is that a 30 mph road gets re-built (at huge expense) to be good for 60mph, even though the speed limit is intended to remain at 30mph. Then they wonder why nobody obeys the speed limit.
The Great Divide is still easily accessible, by parking at the BC provincial boundary sign on the main highway. The tracks are only a couple of hundred feet away, along an open cut, with the interpretive site just beyond. It is quite steep so may be out of the question for folks with mobility problems, but my 82 year old mother was able to manage it easily several years back.
The recent potash trains through Calgary have generally had the configuration you mentioned. The intermodal trains now also frequently have a single DPU, sometimes at the end, but can be almost anywhere mid-train.
John
The back road you mentioned is the old Lake Louise-Golden highway, or what was THE road through Kicking Horse before the 1960s. Contrary to what John said, I was under the impression that they closed it to protect wildlife. I prefer walking/skiing/biking in (season depending) from the Lake O'Hara parking lot.
Locos on that train were 2/1/1 with the midtrain about 2/3 of the way back.
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