KVR Tales-Page 1 KVR Tales-Page 2
Written and maintained by Hector Turner (hectorturner@home.com)
Contents Copyright ©2000
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I think this has turned out to be the most popular section of the website and for me a least certainly the most interesting. It is here that I will post messages and photos sent to me by those of you who remember what it was like to work or live near the Kettle Valley Railway. The only personal connection to the Kettle Valley that I can claim (other than a great interest... obsession?) is that during the depression my grandfather, like many other men, would travel to the Okanagan to get seasonal work in the orchards. In order to get there he would hop a freight going east. Naturally with money so scarce, he was not exactly a paying passenger and one time, to my grandmother's eternal shame, he was arrested by the railway police in Spence's Bridge and spent the night in jail! He must have traveled the KVR many times over the years and I regret not being able to ask him about what it was like. I am hoping that this section will continue to grow, so if you have anything to add or know someone who does, e-mail me at hectorturner@home.com or call at me, Hector Turner at (905) 799-2974. |
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I am just a youngster compared to the incidents which I have read about. My experience on the KV Division was in 1956 when I worked in the Merritt station as an Assistant Agent. I was seventeen at the time and it was my first experience away from home. I arrived in Merritt in late June of that year. The passenger train was detouring via Spences Bridge at that time and I got off in Merritt about 2:30am. The pipeline was being built at the time and there were no hotel rooms available and I ended up sleeping on the bench in the station waiting room. I was all ready to hop on the westbound passenger train and head back home, except for the operator who talked me into staying, at least until morning when I would have a chance of getting a place to stay. I believe the fellow's name was Dan Burton. I did stay and spent the summer in Merritt and left when I bid a job in on one of the mainline stations. I remember another time, August 14, 1956, when I got off train 68 at Brookmere and slipped and fell on my butt because of frost on the wooden platform. Made quite a few trips between Brookmere and Merritt as well as Merritt and Spences Bridge on that old mixed which ran at that time. The crew on that job was engineer Harry Percival of Brookmere, conductor Eric Baldock of Penticton, brakemen Mac Wheeldon, not sure if he lived in Brookmere or Penticton at that time, I later worked with him on the PGE Railway, and a fellow whose last name was Conway. I can't remember his first name. -Wayne Oliver, retired conductor, CP Railway Jim Stotesbury from the Coquihalla Lakes Lodge again sent in some great pics - they were taken by an ex-railway employee. The aerial photos of the pass I find incredible. Thanks Jim!
Train through Coquihalla Pass Click on the thumbnails above to see an enlarged photo.
Train at the Summit
The Lodge in winter - the railway track is just in front Lindsay Esson wrote: Happened onto your great website on the KVR - my all time favorite railway! Of course having been born and raised in Penticton, I could be accused of being biased, after all I grew up with the KVR through the '40s. We used to ride the KVR down to Vancouver to visit my Grandmother and I have great memories as I grew up, of the CPR service in the dining cars, etc. I have a very dim memory of getting on the train down at the old Penticton Station on Okanagan Lake - knowing when the new station opened - I couldn't have been more than 3 years old. My best friend was Lorne Collett. His dad Joe was an KVR engineer, as a result, our gang got to see the inside of the roundhouse and got to climb around the odd locomotive - probably broke the odd CPR rule while we were at it! Lots of our neighbours were KVR men, so while we weren't a railway family, we certainly felt a close affiliation with the KVR. At its peak it was a predominate force in the life of Penticton. (This next submission is from Joe Smuin, noted author of "Canadian Pacific's Kettle Valley Railway". Joe grew up around the Kettle Valley with many of his family working on the railway. He himself joined on with the CPR in Penticton and so heard stories of the KVR directly from the railroaders who were there.) These two images were sent in by Joe recently. The first is a scan of an actual office memo from Andrew McCulloch done on Kettle Valley Railway letterhead and bears McCulloch's signature. The next is a panoramic shot of the east end of the former Penticton Roundhouse in October 1982. Click on the small thumbnails to see a larger image.
Penticton Roundhouse-cica 1982 Hi Hector, I thought that I could add some detail to some of the stories and photos in your website's story section. #1: J.R. Lucke's photo of the steam train was taken at Mileage 1, Princeton Subdivision, just west of Penticton yard. The locomotives are reported to be Decapod R3B class, No. 5761 and Consolidation M4G class, No. 3481. The train is just departing Penticton yard and starting its climb up West Bench Hill. No. 5761 will work as far west as Kirton, mileage 25.0, where it will cut off, turn on the wye and return light engine to Penticton. The date is believed to be the summer of 1939. No. 5761 was one of the first two decapods to be assigned to Penticton in early 1939. #2: Gerry Rempel speaks of the wreck involving Mikado Class P1E, No. 5178 at mileage 25.3, Coquihalla Subdivision on November 14th, 1941. My uncle Gerry Smuin was the engineer on the helper engine (Consolidation N2 class No. 3652) coupled immediately behind No. 5178. Uncle Gerry's engine stopped just short of following the 5178 over the bank. I will publish more details of this incident in a forth coming book. Suffice it to say for now that it was a tragic incident and an extremely harrowing one for my uncle. Though a senior Kettle Valley engineman, after this incident, he seldom worked the road, confining himself to whatever yard assignments he could hold in Penticton. My father (a Kettle Valley fireman and engineer) used to talk about unemployed men riding the trains. He commented about the behaviour of some of the C.P.R. policemen. One such man would ride the freight train, moving down the line of cars, using a billy club to hit the riders and then THROW THEM OFF THE TRAIN WHILE IT ROLLED ALONG! He could never understand why that policeman was not waylaid somewhere and permanently "iced." #3: Jim Stotesbury's photo of a track car with a sign reading "Lil - Joe Express No. 13". This referred to Lil and Joe Jackson who ran the fishing lodge at Coquihalla. For a while it was thought to have been a reference to a well known Kettle Valley engineer... "Little Joe" Raymond, but this was not the case. "Little Joe" Raymond was a very short, Italian immigrant who had managed to work his way into Kettle Valley engine service during the manpower shortages of the First World War. He was considered to be a crack engineer and equally as crazy. Stories abound of this man's stunts and foibles. My dad used to laugh about firing for him during the Second World War. Little Joe had seen a newsreel about the Australian troops in the North African desert. He was in particular most taken with the distinctive hats worn by the Australian soldiers. Not able to find one in British Columbia, he took an old felt hat and pinned up the brim on one side in the same manner as the Australians. He wore that hat for some considerable time. #4: Glenn Taylor must have been running around the KVR grade at about the same time as I was. I knew several Taylors, so can only wonder which crowd he belonged to. He refers to a boiler explosion above Naramata. On November 25th, 1944, Mikado P1D class, No. 5101 suffered a boiler explosion at mileage 117, Carmi Subdivision. The site of the explosion was on the hillside a couple of miles above and a little to the north of Naramata. The boiler explosion resulted from the fireman and engineman allowing the water to get too low in the boiler. Both men survived the incident, reportedly the only such incident on C.P.R. lines in BC that did not involve fatalities. The engineer was an old family friend whom I remember well. Funny, talking about KV memories - I have so many, but one little incident comes to mind. My dad left the railway in 1947 and bought an orchard on the hillside above Skaha Lake at the south end of town. One January morning about 1968, he and I were out pruning fruit trees. It was a beautiful, clear morning with ever so slight a breeze out of the north. It was cold, with an unusual amount of snow on the ground, so sounds really carried. It was around 10 a.m. when we heard the chant of a freight train starting to work its way up the West Bench Hill. Man, were those engines working. There were two or three General Motors GP9 series units, loaded to the eyebrows. It must have taken the train the better part of ten minutes to climb the three miles to the first flat. In that time, Dad and I just kept looking at each other to see if the other was listening. We could see glimpses of the train although it was just a dark line in the distance. Did those engines ever sing that morning! The frozen cliffs behind us reverberated the song so that we listened in stereo. When silence finally returned, I think we both felt deprived. For two railroaders at heart, the sound of those engines and knowing how hard they must have been working, was as stirring as any drama produced for stage or screen. - Joe Smuin
Joe Smuin in the cab window of CCLC-FM H-Liner 8551
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I came across these old postcards on eBay and managed to scoop them up! I wasn't sure where else to put them in the site so I'll post them here.
