And now we swing back to take another look at the ever-fascinating and impressive track through the mountains, where we saw the last spike driven at Craigellachie in 1885. It will be remembered that Mr. Van Horne, during all those difficult months when it looked as if the Company, owing to the unexpected and terrific cost of construction, was facing financial disaster, refused to stop or even lessen the work. When times were darkest he put on more men and made a bigger effort to get ahead. As long as Stephen and his associates could raise any money and Shaughnessy handle it to the best advantage, Van Horne turned a deaf ear to all admonitions to slow up in construction operations. He said that to do so would only bring creditors around them like a nest of hornets, and that the road completed from ocean to ocean, or in steady course of completion, would not only make appeal to financial men as something worth investing in, but would soon do a carrying trade which would meet the Company’s obligations. So he drove ahead and rested not till the last spike was driven, as related.
But no one knew better than the big railroader that there remained much to be done. He had seen to it that the work was well done and the track secure and safe for travel. The result of the swift completion was early operation of the road, and justified Van Horne’s view by bringing in revenue at once to meet obligations, and by putting the new railway definitely on the map of the world as a worth while business enterprise.
But the speed in construction made much temporary work necessary. Wooden trestles were not permanent structures, and neither were wooden snowsheds. Grades would require to be reduced in places to meet the demands of growing traffic, and curvatures would have to be modified. Hence engineers and contractors of the highest class have been throughout the years engaged here and there in bringing the whole line to greater perfection, with the result that the Canadian Pacific is wonderfully free from danger or delay. The ordinary passenger through the mountains is conscious that he is travelling amidst splendid scenery on a solid road-bed, but only the practical builder and roadmaster can estimate with what constant skill and care the road has been built up and kept to such a high standard of excellence. But even the ordinary passenger can appreciate things so plainly evident as tunnels, and on the Canadian Pacific through the mountains he will find the most interesting system of spiral tunnels in existence, and he will also enjoy the novelty of speeding in comfort through the longest tunnel on the continent. A word on these famous tunnels may fittingly find a place in this chapter on special features.
Previous to 1908 the grades between Hector and Field, in the mountains, were difficult. For some three miles a grade prevailed which was ten times the maximum grade permitted on heavy prairie work. This involved much difficulty in operating, as it necessitated the use of extra locomotives to pull the train up the grade and prevent it going too fast on the way down. In fact these grades involved the use of spring switches along that portion of the line for safety. Unless the engine-driver of a descending train signalled to the switchman that his train was under control, the setting of a safety-switch would divert the train to a catch siding and so bring it to a stop. This system was operated for twenty-four years without a single accident to a passenger train. To say that is to magnify the trustworthiness of the men who operated on the “Big Hill,” and who evidently lived up to the admonition of the time cards on this division, which read “Obey the rules; be watchful; run no risks.”
But the increase of traffic as the years passed necessitated the construction of the famous spiral tunnels through or under Cathedral Mountain and Mount Ogden and the building of special bridges over the river. Leaving technical points and figures aside, it may be sufficient to say that trains entering these mountains climb or descend in a spiral way with less than half the former engine power and with the utmost degree of safety. In my observation it has been a constant delight to passengers to watch how the train loops inside these mountains and comes out at a different level from that which it entered. It is all so novel and free from danger that travellers, enjoying the sensation, are loud in their praise of the engineers and workmen who thought out and constructed these remarkable spirals through the eternal hills, even though it cost the Company over a million to make this change for the pleasure and safety of their guests over the road.
Still more notable as an engineering feat is the great Connaught Tunnel, five miles long, between Glacier and Stony Creek. It is called after a well-beloved Governor-General of Canada, the Duke of Connaught, son of Queen Victoria, of immortal memory. This tunnel was built to avoid the climb over the top of the famous old Rogers Pass, through a gorge subject in winter and spring to snow-slides, against which the railway was protected by four miles and a half of heavily built snowsheds. These snowsheds were built of wood, and wood is not an everlasting material. Occasionally sections of this long shed would be carried away and all of it would show wear in the process of time. Taking this along with the heavy grade, the Company concluded to tunnel through MacDonald Mountain and solve all the problems at the same time. The construction of this double-track tunnel, the longest on this continent, as noted above, was begun in August, 1913. It took over two years “to make a hole through the mountain,” but another year saw the tunnel open for regular traffic. In addition to eliminating the snowsheds, which are not an infallible protection, the tunnel shortens the distance across the Selkirk range by over four miles, lowers the summit attained by the railway by 552 feet, and reduces track curvatures by an amount corresponding to seven complete circles. Perfect ventilation is attained by powerful fans and I have passed through the Connaught Tunnel again and again with windows open and experienced no inconvenience whatever.
The work was done by contract by a noted builder of big things—railways, canals, wharves, etc.—Mr. J. W. Stewart. Perhaps he is better known to thousands as General “Jack” Stewart, who left his business in Canada and served during the Great War as the builder in France and Flanders of the light railways up to the battle front, which had much to do with the victory of the allies. Stewart had a strenuous time building the Connaught tunnel, Mr. George Bury, then Western Vice-President of the Company, giving active co-operation and being often on the ground.
To recapitulate in some measure the significant things about this tunnel, in which the world’s records for such work were several times exceeded, one can say generally that the building of it is another evidence that the Canadian Pacific Railway will not consider cost in its efforts to eliminate grades, snow troubles or anything else which stands in the way of the efficiency and safe operation of the road. Though the tunnel was opened for traffic about seven years ago, the Company has kept on making such improvements as preclude all danger from loosened rock or such like. With that in view a large number of expert workmen have been kept in the tunnel in regular shifts, and these men are now completing the fine work of lining the whole tunnel, roof, sides and all, with concrete, in such a way that nothing more can be thought of to make the great “bore” through the MacDonald Mountain safe, secure and scientifically sound. The original contract cost has thus been steadily increased for some years, though the tunnel was safe for traffic when it was opened, until it is probably within the limit to say that this great engineering feat has cost the Company close to ten millions. Just what some of the early critics of the cost of the Canadian Pacific, who thought a bonus from the Government of twenty-five millions in addition to a grant of land was excessive, would think of a case like this, must be left to some one with vivid imagination to say. In this single instance we find the Company, after expending an immense sum on crossing through the Rogers Pass in early construction days, building then nearly five miles of expensive snowsheds and having everything in running order, abandoning the whole thing, and at a cost of nearly ten millions more, going on to make their line more useful and more safe. No doubt the early engineers in the 80’s saw that some such tunnel might be possible, but the railway was then battling for life and could not spend nearly half its total cash bonus on a space of five miles in a road that would measure three thousand miles or so across Canada.
There are other special features that might be noticed in connection with the Canadian Pacific Railway, which has now a mileage of twenty thousand miles of road and its house-flag on all the seas. With its one hundred and twenty thousand employees, and a payroll expenditure of nearly one hundred millions a year, it is a large factor in our modern civilization. It has numberless auxiliary organizations, and has the good habit of backing up industries that tend to build up the country. We do not claim that its motives are entirely disinterested in thus assisting other industries and undertakings, but its readiness to do so indicates the truth of Lord Shaughnessy’s statement that what helps to make Canada helps the Canadian Pacific, and vice versa. Present conditions in this vast organization can be studied by actual observation, and therefore do not come within the scope of this work, which was begun mainly to keep alive the facts that should not be left unrecorded in the history of Canada.
And now, therefore, the agreeable task of preserving, in some humble and imperfect way, the record of a great Canadian achievement is coming to an end. It was not our intention to write in any detail of the present-day operations of the world’s greatest transportation system as a prosperous going concern. The Canadian Pacific Railway is an outstanding factor in the life of the modern world. And one is sorry for any one in the employ of this company who does not realize the importance of having a share, however microscopic to one’s self, in the affairs of an enterprise which belts the earth as a contributing element in the onward march of the human family. There is still romance and fascination in the countless activities of an organization with whose continued prosperity is wrapped up the welfare of numberless homes and uncounted legions of human beings. The contemplation of the future of this world-encircling enterprise introduces us to a realm of mystic adventure whose limits are undefined, because beyond the power of finite intelligence to estimate. So we shall not essay what was beyond our purpose from the beginning of this present writing. The purpose we had in view was to prevent the older generation from a calamitous forgetfulness of the things heroic and impressive they have witnessed in connection with the building and operation of the pioneer steel trail across Canada. And, even more specially, was it our purpose to transmit to the coming generation some pen portraits of giant men whom they are not to know in real life. One regrets the impossibility of placing on these pages a full roll of honour on which is emblazoned not only all those more or less conspicuously connected with the enterprise, but the names of the unknown warriors who, in a great host, moved gallantly forward in as brave a fight against obstacles as the world of industry has ever known. Thousands of these men were under the stress and strain of intense endeavour, or engaged in work where their lives were constantly in danger. They not only went forward undismayed, but solemnly handed on to others the task they could not themselves finish. Like Sir Walter Scott’s wounded knight who, when carried dying from the field, still heard the roar of the conflict and cheered his comrades on to victory, these brave men did their part and encouraged others to persevere. The task they accomplished in the making of Canada into a great Confederacy of Provinces, linked indissolubly together as a noble Dominion, must not be allowed to pass into oblivion. The coming generation must not miss the tonic power that comes from a knowledge of great achievement in a nation’s life. In ancient Egypt it was when men arose who knew not what Joseph had done to give a new and great trend to their history, that the land of the Pharaohs began a journey towards decadence. Our hope is that this book and similar records of life in Canada will help to put iron into the blood of the coming generations, in order that this new land by their consecrated labours may shine with ever-growing lustre in the firmament of human life and history.