Along the River

This post card is a picture of a train travelling along the edge of the Kicking Horse River. In the bottom right hand corner, Byron Harmon has written, “217. Kicking Horse Canyon”. I have a magnifying glass with a small light on it; when I look very carefully, and at the right angle, I can read these words on top of the river. If you compare this to the picture on the front of post card in the blog post of two days ago, you could see the curves in the river that look very similar to those in the previous post card.

I can understand Byron finding his way down to the river to be able to get a great shot like this one. One can see the entire train: two engines and tenders at the front, eleven enclosed passenger and baggage cars and one open car at the back. The rapids in the water show that the engines are working their way up the canyon from Field toward the Spiral Tunnels. If one looks carefully, especially with the assistance of a lighted magnifying glass, one can see in the upper right hand corner of the post card, a gash in the side of the mountain. Perhaps that is where the picture of the previous post card was taken and where the upper Spiral Tunnel is – who knows?

The back of the post card is just like the one of the previous blog post. It has AZO where the stamp goes with squares in the corners. So, this card is about the same age as the one in the last posting. AZO is a type of paper used to print photographs for over a century. It was first offered to the world by Kodak in 1898. Its best use was for developing contact prints. Many photographers have used AZO paper because of its qualities to produce a sharp image on strong paper. It seems Byron Harmon liked it, too.

This introduction to the biography of Byron Harmon comes from: http://www.harmonphotography.com/artists/byron.html

Again the photographer is Byron Harmon. He was born on the family homestead at Olympia, Washington, and endowed with a knack for using his hands, an adventurer’s spirit, and a bad case of asthma that vexed him his entire life. As a teenager, photography grabbed his interest and he waded into the new medium with a pinhole camera he constructed himself. An enterprising young man, he opened up a portrait studio in Tacoma, WA. Without enough money to buy film he accepted his first client and proceeded to take her picture with an empty camera. Requesting a down payment, he used the money to buy film and then asked the lady back for retakes. From that moment on he never looked back. Harmon soon realised that there was little to hold his interest in portrait photography alone. Packing his studio into three valises, he set out to wrestle with the North American landscape, heading across the southern United States, up through New York, and back west across Canada, garbed in a travelling hobos fashion wearing overalls, a white shirt and a wide brimmed straw hat, his feet naked in his boots. Wandering amidst these landscapes, his eye for geography and his talent with a lens developed quickly.

In 1903, at age 27, Harmon made a short visit to a bustling little community in the Canadian Rockies called Banff. Already with a handful of hotels, a chemist, a sanitarium, and international stardom, Harmon was shocked to find that the town was without a photographic studio. As an added bonus, the dry mountain air helped relieve his asthma. The visit was short but his impression of the place was a lasting one and he soon returned to make a living photographing mountains. Without roads or trail systems, the mountains required him to negotiate their steep slopes and treacherous passes to discover his sought after images, a deed equally as challenging as framing up the jagged peaks. His forays into mountaineering bore fruit and in 1906 he opened up shop on Banff Avenue advertising the largest collection of Canadian Rockies images in existence.

Introduction to Byron Harmon

This post card is a picture that was shot near the two spiral tunnels. It has a great shot of the Kicking Horse River in the background and the title written on the picture tells us that it is on Field Hill. This is still a steep section on the CPR main line. It is located near Field, B.C. a town that was built so that the Canadian Pacific Railway could add locomotives to trains to assist them over both Field Hill and the Big Hill (which I wrote about in the last posting).

The Railway built a roundhouse made of stone with a turntable so the engines could simply turn around go back to where they came. While Field Hill was not as steep as the Big Hill, it was steep enough to require assistance getting over even after the spiral tunnels were finished. Having said that, this is a picture of a train with only one engine on the head end. It must have been a very short train or there was one attached at the back.

This picture was taken by Byron Harmon as was the picture in the previous posting. I have about 30 of his train post card pictures. I will be sharing them with you over the next several blog postings. I will also be sharing some information about Mr. Harmon. I was impressed with the angles at which he was able to take some of these shots. I thought he must be very brave and adventurous to get to the places where he was to get these pictures. So, I investigated Byron Harmon. HE WAS BRAVE AND ADVENTUROUS!! You will find out more as we progress through the set of post cards I have in my collection.

The back of the post card can give us an idea of how old this particular card is.

In the top right, where the stamp goes, there is a rubber stamp marking. It says, “PLACE STAMP HERE” inside of a box that has AZO on all four sides and a square in each corner. The squares in the corners indicate that this post card was made sometime between 1926 and the 1940s. It is one of the younger cards with an AZO stamp on the back. They were started in 1907 with diamonds in the corners. On the left side of the card, Byron has stamped “ALONG LINE OF CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY” and included information that he was the photographer and he holds the copyright. It also tells us that he was headquartered in Banff, Alberta, Canada.

I have lived in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (about 400 kilometers or 250 miles from Banff) for 29 years. I have been to Banff and I have seen the building he built to house his business. I have talked to the person in the gallery and I have visited his granddaughter’s website.

Along the Line of the Canadian Pacific Railway

You are looking at what was, and still might be, the most dangerous section of the Canadian Pacific Railway. This is the lower spiral tunnel with a train going from left to right on the tracks just above the tunnel entrance in the center of the post card. Of course, being named the lower spiral tunnel gives the correct impression that there is an upper spiral tunnel. That tunnel is behind the photographer of this picture and up the hill. These two tunnels replaced the tracks that were laid on what was known as “The Big Hill”. It was located on the main (only) line between Calgary, Alberta and Port Moody, British Columbia – much closer to Calgary. Trains on The Big Hill have to ascend just over 1,000 feet in 10 miles between Field, British Columbia and the Continental Divide in the Canadian Rockies, which forms the border between the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia (BC). My math tells me that this is a 2.03% grade, a very safe grade. Unfortunately, the track could not ascend at a proper and steady rate. At Mount Stephen, the engineers decided to go as straight through the canyon as possible. This produced a steep grade of almost 4.5% at one spot along the line. They also engineered into this section three escape-spurs in case the train’s brakes gave out or could not hold up against the wait pushing it down the hill.

We have to remember that British Columbia was promised a railroad connection to the rest of the country within 10 years of them joining the Dominion of Canada. The final spike mentioned in an earlier post happened in 1885, four years past the deadline promised. CP Rail was facing some serious pressure to get to BC. This route was to be temporary route that satisfied the politicians and citizens of the BC. It remained the temporary line for 25 years, until the opened the Spiral Tunnels on September 1, 1909. The work started in 1907 and cost $1.5 million dollars at that time.

Today, as a train leaves Field headed for Calgary in the Laggan Subdivision on the new route (a journey of 136.6 miles = NOT as the crow flies), it slowly ascends the valley on the old track. After almost seven miles, at the bottom of Mount Ogden (the station is known as YOHO), the train enters the lower spiral tunnel. It travels three quarters of a circle in the tunnel for just under 3,000 feet rising up the inside of the mountain by 50 feet. It then crosses the Kicking Horse River and goes back in the direction it just came from (toward Field) as it rises up the side of the canyon wall. Soon, it enters the next spiral tunnel – this one in Cathedral Mountain. This tunnel, too, is about 3,000 feet long and is a three quarter circle. Inside this tunnel the train rises up another 50 feet. Then it continues up to the double tracks at Divide, followed by its 121.5 mile journey to Calgary.

These two post cards are the same picture; they even have the same number and title handwritten on the front. One is done is sepia tone and the other is in black and white. They both have the same stamp on the back, too. The top of the stamp says, "POST CARD". Below that is MADE IN CANADA; followed by Along the Line of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Then we read, "Photographed and Copyrighted by BYRON HARMON, BANFF CANADA" The same rubber stamp tells us that the right side of the post card is for the address and the left if for the correspondence.

This begins a series of pictures taken by the same photographer: Byron Harmon, who worked out of Banff, Alberta. I will write more about him as this series progresses.

Another Steam Engine used by the Canadian Pacific Railway

The engine pictured in this post card is known in Canada as a “Pacific”. It was built in 1906 but it shown here arriving in Vancouver, British Columbia around 1932 pulling a passenger train. It is a G-2 class engine and its wheel arrangement is 4-6-2. It is called the Pacific type of engine because the first ones of this type were being shipped to a small pacific island called New Zealand. The trailing “2” in the wheel arrangement made it possible to build a larger firebox for more pressure for greater speed and power. Needless to say, these became very popular engines in the railroad world (who wouldn't want a bigger firebox?). Canadian Pacific had 498 4-6-2s and their class was represented by the letter G. The G-1s, G-2s and G-5s, by virtue of size and service, were light Pacifics. The G-3s and G-4s, on the other hand, were larger engines for heavier duties. The first two series of Pacifics, the G-1 and G-2 classes were out sourced by various builders between 1906 and 1914 They differed from one another in only one major particular feature: the size of the driving wheels. While the more functional G-2s were given 70" driving wheels, the less numerous but faster G-1s had 75" wheels, giving them somewhat less tractive effort, but higher speed capability. Their cylinders were 17 ¼ by 28 inches. Practically all of the G-1s and G-2s survived more than forty years, and many saw more than half a century in service. That the light Pacifics were in many ways one of CP Rail's ideal types was underlined in 1944 when the first G-5 4-6-2s appeared. Emulating the earlier engines in size, weight and capacity, 102 G-5s were produced between 1944 and 1948 bringing the total number of light 4-6-2s on company lines up to 307.

Staying with the Theme…

The theme is “Steam Engines Used by the Canadian Pacific Railway”. The engine pictured in this post card is known in Canada as a “Royal Hudson”. If you look carefully, you can see a crown on the front left of the engine, just above the steam cylinder attached to the running board. (You probably won’t be surprised to learn that these crowns became collectors’ items to the unscrupulous).

This post card belongs to the same series as the previous two. The picture of the engine was taken about 1957 while the engine was in Vancouver, British Columbia. Most of the information you will read below comes from the website: http://www.rrsites.com/royalhudson/ The term “Hudson” for a 4-6-4 wheel arrangement comes from the fact that the first steam engines to have the arrangement were made for the New York Central Railroad. Their main line in the state of New York travelled along the Hudson River; thus, the name Hudson for the engines. The New York Central had the largest fleet of 4-6-4s. The second largest fleet belonged to the Canadian Pacific Railway; they manufactured 65 of them in their Montreal Locomotive Works in Quebec beginning in 1929. The first few engines (Numbers 2800 to 2819) are referred to as “Standard Hudsons”; the rest (Number 2820 to 2864) are known as “Royal Hudsons”. The entire lot belongs to the H1 Class (from H1a to H1e) of steam locomotive. The cylinders are 22 by 30 inches; the Driving Wheels are 75 inches in diameter; the Boiler Pressure was capable of 275 pounds which was able to produce a Tractive Effort of 45,300 pounds.

All of the best features of North American locomotive design were incorporated into the Hudson. A real effort was made to give them really clean cut lines. The Hudson achieved great success as a high speed passenger locomotive, quickly making previous types obsolete. Her top speed was in excess of 90 mph! This cut down the time for cross country travel dramatically. The Canadian Pacific Railway used the Hudson for freight duties as well, making it a truly versatile locomotive. In 1939, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (father and mother of the current Queen Elizabeth) crossed Canada by train, from Quebec to Vancouver. The train was provided jointly by the Canadian Pacific (CP) and Canadian National (CN) Railroads. Westbound it travelled over CP lines, while the return trip was over the CN. Hudson #2850 was given the honor of pulling the Royal Train to Vancouver. It was specially refinished in Royal Blue and aluminum, with a golden crown (the King's crown) at the front of each running board. CP Hudson #2851 was chosen to head the procession as a pilot train. It preceded the Royal train by exactly one hour, carrying the press and other officials. Both locomotives performed perfectly over the 3224 mile trip. After the trip, 2850 and 2851 were returned to their standard paint scheme. The CP applied for, and was granted, special permission to retain the crowns on the 2850, and to designate the Hudson as a "Royal" Hudson. Eventually, all of the Hudsons in the streamlined class (2820-2864) were fitted with crowns on their running boards and designated as Royal Hudsons.

This post card is part of a series produced by the same company that printed the picture in my previous blog post: Head-End Rail Prints located in White Rock, British Columbia. Because of this I won’t be showing the back side of the post card. This is a picture of another steam engine used by the Canadian Pacific Railway. The wheel arrangement is a 2-8-2, also known as the Mikado. It got the name Mikado because the Americans made engines of the same wheel arrangement and sold them to the Imperial Japanese Government. The title on the back of the card says, “C.P.R. 2-8-2 #5107 High-ball Freight Power”. The picture was taken in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Many wheel arrangements can be found on the old steam locomotives. The arrangements are the result of the evolution of the efforts to produce more powerful and faster engines. The designers were working under the constraints of maximum heights (going through tunnels) and widths (track size and tunnels). The only direction they could play with was the length of the engines. You will have to wait for my Union and Southern Pacific post cards to see the final results before diesels took over. As the demand for higher speeds became possible because of safer tracks and engineered roadbeds, longer boilers became a reality meet the need for speed. This wheel arrangement was designed to support the larger boiler, to lead the engine through curves and to support the firebox. The source of the following information comes from: http://members.shaw.ca/cprsteam/ Trailing trucks began to make their appearance under passenger engines on Canadian Pacific lines as early as 1905, but the large number of 2-8-0 type engines in freight service postponed development of a large-boilered freight locomotive until 1912. In that year the first 2-8-2 locomotives were produced (class P-1-a) and while they had the same tractive effort as N-2 class 2-8-0s then still being produced, their larger boilers meant faster steam generation and hence, higher speeds. The era of the fast freight train had come, and in spite of evolution toward a "super" locomotive which manifested itself in the 1920s and 1930s, the 2-8-2 remained the basic road freight locomotive to the end of the steam era, certainly on Canadian Pacific lines. In all, 334 2-8-2s served the Company. Canadian Pacific's units proved to be most reliable and versatile engines; the light P-1, was equally at home on passenger trains in hilly terrain. Between 1926 and 1930, the ninety-five P-ls were rebuilt with smaller diameter cylinders and higher boiler pressures; as each locomotive was converted, 100 was added to its road number. Thus, No. 5007 pictured in the post card above eventually became No. 5107. Numbers (1912 series): CP5100-CP5194 (Class P1b, 1912) CP5200-CP5254 (Class P1n, 1910-1913); Number of locos built in this class: 150; Builders: Canadian Pacific Railway, Angus. Montreal Locomotive Works; Type: Mikado Type 2-8-2; Cylinder size: 23x32 inch; Driving Wheel diameter: 63 in.; Total Weight: 457,500-509,000 lbs.