THE CISCO CANTILEVER BRIDGE CARRYING THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY ACROSS THE FRASER RIVER
The bridge leads to a tunnel driven through the precipitous wall of the canyon.
Hill, photo]
[See [page 240]
THE KEY WEST “LIMITED” PASSING OVER LONG KEY VIADUCT AT FULL SPEED
The Pacific end of the line was taken in hand by the Government, and it must be conceded that they had most difficult work to accomplish, for they had to force their way through the Fraser and Thompson River canyons, producing the heaviest 300 continuous miles of engineering on the whole line. They had to fight for every inch of the way through these ravines, as the bottom is entirely occupied by the water. The line is laid on a gallery carved in the cliff-face 200 feet above the waters boiling beneath, in a succession of cuts and tunnels, with some fine examples of bridging, of which the cantilever structure across the Fraser River of 300 feet span was the second of its character to be built on the American continent. This link cost about £2,000,000, or $10,000,000, to build, representing about £16,000, or $80,000, per mile purely for the formation of the grade ready to receive the metals.
Considering the magnitude of this undertaking and the fact that the railway extended through extremely diversified country from level plain to tumbled lofty mountains, construction at the rate of some five hundred miles per annum was a magnificent achievement. For the greater part of the distance it traversed country where the white man was not in occupation, and where several years were certain to pass before it yielded any economic value capable of producing traffic to the railway. The enterprise was jeopardised seriously by the financial panic in the United States, and the Northern Pacific railway crisis, which misfortunes did not augur well for the success of another trans-continental railway. When it was finished, the inquiry as to why it had been built through an absolute wilderness from end to end was raised on all sides. The present day supplies the answer to that criticism to a complete degree. From the day of its completion the Dominion went forward with a rush, and it cannot be denied that the province of British Columbia played an important part in the development of the country when it insisted, as a return for its entrance into the federation of the provinces, that a railway should be built across the continent to link the east with the west within ten years.