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Bill Herbert (right) gathers material for feature broadcast on Spiral and Connaught Tunnels in the
heart of the Canadian Rockies.
Tunnelling Through the Rockies
By Bill Herbert, Vancouver Representative, CBC International Service.
Ask any North American railroader his choice of the toughest, hardest
stretch of steel to work and chances are he’ll tell you it’s that dangerous
section on the CPR mainline through the Selkirk Mountains and beyond to
Hector, a tiny way station in the heart of the Canadian Rockies.
Well, it’s on this same stretch of track that you’ll find two of the most
notable engineering projects on record . . . the Spiral Tunnels and the
Connaught Tunnel.
A few months ago I was assigned by the CBC to produce a feature broadcast
on this particular part of the railroad, and consequently had a chance to see
these tunnels and inspect them closely at first hand.
Let’s look at the Spiral Tunnels first. They were built because the railway
back in 1908 was fighting a losing battle against snow, slides and above all the
almost staggering grade of 4.5 per cent which trains had to negotiate to get
through the mountains. And the only place the grade could be cut was to
build a gentler slope inside the mountains. And so, work was started.
There are two tunnels and the track doubles around itself twice and forms a
figure eight underneath Cathedral Mountain and Mt. Ogden. The grade was
cut to 2.2 per cent.
Number One Tunnel, from the East, turns under Cathedral Mountain and
is Just over 3,200 feet long. It turns at an angle of about 250 degrees on
a+573 foot radius, passes underneath itself and emerges at the opposite
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