OUCH!! Don't Do That...

The picture on this post card shows a train exiting from the lower of two spiral tunnels built by the Canadian Pacific Railway to solve a problem of trains losing control on "The Big Hill" and killing people on board. This

happened because the grade of The Big Hill was 4.5%. The very expensive solution to this challenge was to bore two spiral tunnels through two different mountains along where trains entered onto The Big Hill as they traveled west. It is at the beginning of the Kicking Horse River Canyon.

From Wikipedia: The route decided upon called for two tunnels driven in three-quarter circles into the valley walls. The higher tunnel, "number one", is about 1,000 yards (0.91 km) in length and runs under Cathedral Mountain, to the south of the original track. When the new line emerges from this tunnel it has doubled back, running beneath itself and 50 feet (15 m) lower. It then descends the valley side in almost the opposite direction to its previous course before crossing the Kicking Horse River and entering Mount Ogden to the north. This lower tunnel, "number two", is a few yards shorter than "number one" and the descent is again about 50 feet. From the exit of this tunnel the line continues down the valley in the original direction, towards Field. The constructions and extra track effectively double the length of the climb and reduce the ruling gradient to 2.2%.

The reason the title of this post is "OUCH!!!" is because of what a stamp collector did to the post card. You can see in the upper right-hand corner that someone has removed the stamp, leaving an unsightly scar. This has reduced the monetary value of the post card to a collector to minimal. The post mark indicates that this post card is 97 years old (August 14, 1922); and, that it was mailed only 13 years after the Spiral Tunnels were completed. That makes it valuable. Having the stamp ripped off makes it almost valueless. OUCH!!!

The card was published by The Valentine and Sons United Publishing Co. The Canadian offices for Valentine’s of Dundee, Scotland were in Montreal, Toronto and, for a short time, Winnipeg.

This post card documents the short period in which they had an office in Winnipeg (another reason for this card to have been valuable to a collector). They published souvenir books, greeting cards and view-cards of Canadian scenery in sets numbered with a three digit prefix and a three digit suffix. These tinted halftone and collotype cards were printed in Great Britain. Valentine sold their Canadian branch in 1923.