The Big Hill 2.4%
A shiny new CPKC locomotive leads an eastbound stack train up the 2.4% section of Canadian Pacific's original "Big Hill" at first light. The original line reached a staggering 5.2% near the bridge across Kicking Horse River. The bridge still remains to this day, with the highway using much of the Railroad Right of Way. In about a 1/4 mile the train will diverge from the original alignment to the new Spiral Tunnel alignment. The reason Kicking Horse Pass was chosen in the first place was more political than operational. 30 miles north of Kicking Horse was Howse Pass which would likely had a ruling grade of 1 to 1.2%, but this was thought by politicians to be too far north. Luckily for railfans the route chosen was the most spectacular route one could choose, other than perhaps the originally planned route of 2.2% along the face of Mt Stephen. The Stephen route would have had the tracks several hundred feet higher than where I am standing in the picture. The highway at the the bottom right, partly uses and parallels a branch line from Field to a large mill that serviced the aerial tram network for the Zinc and Silver mines in along the valley. Dave Gayer shot a spectacular spread from here in the Nov 1994 issue of Pacific Rail News... that article is a great inspiration...
