Thread: Canadian Pacific Railway, 1950 style

Hope to do some of that rail trip in a couple of years.

Travelled some of that area three years ago.
Very interesting video of how it used to be.

Thanks for sharing.

Did you note the Vauxhall Velox at 3:14 and what might be an Austin Devon at 3:29?

I'm glad I didn't have to do train control in that way.

Originally Posted by p38arover

I'm glad I didn't have to do train control in that way.

See Ron, you never knew how good you REALLY had it!

Originally Posted by drivesafe

See Ron, you never knew how good you REALLY had it!

Damn right there, Tim. The worst was having to go outside when it was snowing in Katoomba to give a driver a CAN form.

Did you also note the lack of safety gear when the bloke climbed the pole to clear snow? Imagine it today.

Hi Ron and funny you should mention snow at Katoomba.

One of the longest shifts I ever did was because of snow at Katoomba.

As you would have known, most goods on the mountains back in the late 70s were all electric hulled but a mate and I worked triple 44s on a goods to Katoomba.

The 44s were being transferred to Bathurst and we got relieved at Katoomba by the Bathurst crew.

We had about an hour to wait for the next Sydney bound interurban so we got some breakfast across the road from the station.

It was snowing and by the time we got back, the snow had caused a number of point failures and we were stuck in Katoomba for hours.

This was caused by a few INCHES of snow. The guys in that film annually dealt with 50 FOOT of snow.

How the hell would the Blue Mountains cope with a few feet of snow let alone 50 foot?

When I was in Omaha this year I was shown some home movies of their winter and snow. These people live with heavy snowfalls every year and are almost disbelieving when I tell them that only a miniscule part of Australia every receives any.

Most intensely dislike snow owing to the disruption it causes to most aspects of their lives. "Lovely stuff for tourists and winter sports enthusiasts but live with it for 5-6 months every year and then see what you think".

There was a short piece of black and white film from the 1950's of a totally snow covered landscape where a heavy steam loco and goods train appeared pushing its way along a totally snow covered track.

Last winter many places had 300-400% of average snowfall. They also had a cool wet spring and the rivers were already full of rainwater but the heavy snowpacks on the mountains had not melted much. The Missouri Valley was already flooded and I29 closed from Sioux Falls almost to Kansas City except for a short stretch near Omaha-Council Bluffs. They were anticipating bad flooding along most of the Missouri once the heavy snows on the Big Horn Mountains melted. The Truckee River at Reno was full and roaring from the snows on the Sierra Nevada, and the Jordan River at Salt Lake was full of rainwater and the snow on the surrounding mountains was yet to melt. This was in late June, early July.

Thanks for posting that up Tim, just finished watching it. I am surprised at the quality of the film, looked like it was just filmed yesterday. Very enjoyable.

I would love to do that trip one day too.

I wonder if the driver still smokes a pipe?