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.