Not Prince Albert in a Can...

Albert Canyon is a railway point at Mile 105.8, Mountain Subdivision of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). Adjacent to the west is Lauretta (Mile 109.5), and east is Downie (Mile 101.6). A hot box detector operates at Mile 105.0. Albert Canyon, one of the original CPR stations opened in 1886, was the Rogers Pass, then Connaught Tunnel, western slope base for pusher locomotives, which predominantly assisted eastbound freight trains up the steep 2.5% grade. The station name derives from the gorge, where the track crosses the south wall of the short box canyon on a narrow ledge. All passenger trains from the late 1880s until at least 1910 made a five-minute stop for passengers to alight and view the Illecillewaet River rushing through the 6-metre (20 ft.) wide gorge 91 metres (300 ft.) below. A stone parapet later replaced the wooden lookout - as seen on the front of this post card

on a rock outcrop. The final train to stop was in 1939. A dispatcher staffed the station telegraph office. A wye and water tank existed. To satisfy the anticipated mining boom, CPR added a long siding westward in 1898, and lengthened the wye southward. In 1910, a spark from a locomotive ignited leaves and timber near the tunnel 2 kilometres (1.25 mi.) west. The fire was initially controlled, but it later spread, almost reaching the section house. A 1916 CPR building program included a rooming and boarding house, cottages, and a five-stall engine house that replaced an earlier building. CPR erected a 91,000-litre; (24,000-US-gallon) oil fuelling tank in 1917, for oil-fired locomotives, and a mechanical coaling plant in 1921, for coal-fired locomotives. The engine house closed in 1940 when the pusher fleet relocated to Revelstoke. Prior to double tracking, a siding existed, which measured 73 cars long west and 77 east in the late 1890s, and 97 cars long in 1935. Still operational in 1948, it is unclear when the telegraph office closed. The final year passenger trains used the station was likely 1967. The section crew probably relocated about this time. In 1984, CPR constructed a 280-metre (930 ft.) test section of PaCT track (a reinforced, cast-in-place concrete foundation 23 cm thick with special clips, instead of spikes, holding the rails in place) at Albert Canyon to determine its suitability for laying in the Mount Macdonald Tunnel. The post card is the product of Byron Harmon's hard efforts.