Empress Subdivision Bridge

Bridges, we love bridges! In fact, we can’t get enough of them! The fine bit of engineering we’ll be looking at today was a mighty one, approaching three quarters of a kilometre in length from end to end (fractions with metric, shame on me). About a century old, it once carried a railway line over a broad meandering river just inside the Saskatchewan border. Today only the piers remain, lots of them, plus the old roadbed leading to each end, the decks that supported the trains long removed.

Our viewpoint didn’t allow us to see the remains in their entirety. Still, what an incredible sight. Big and long, so lonely, so remote, so forgotten. We really hope to return some day and came no where close to getting enough this trip. Not nearly so. The three photo presented don’t do it justice. It’s that good a subject and needs further exploration.

Empress Subdivision Bridge: remains of a century old structure that once carried trains across the South Saskatchewan River. Researched, written and photographed by Chris Doering and Connie Biggart (BIGDoer.com)

The line here was the Canadian Pacific Railway’s Empress Subdivision running from it namesake town just across the line in Alberta to a point in the east near Swift Current where it joined up with the mainline. Built in the 1910s it was a conduit for grain moving out of the area, and later for coal coming from the Red Deer River Valley near Drumheller and bound for southern Saskatchewan markets. In the 1930s-1950s in particular, a lot of it moved along the line. It was heating fuel.

↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ Scroll down for photos and to comment ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓

The bridge was a huge undertaking and held up completion of the line for many, many months. Makes sense, since it was the greatest engineering challenge along the line and kept lots of men busy for quite some time. Interestingly, we found what appears to be the location of a fair-sized yard along the old line, to the east, which presumably was the staging area for materials coming to the site. It’s easily four tracks wide and we can’t think what other purpose it could have served outside what we’re guessing at.

The bridge is compromised of some thirty plus concrete piers, equidistant from each other. This allowed the many spans needed to be identical to each other, thereby reducing costs. Even so, this was of course a pricey endeavour, and was one of the longest bridges on the entire system. Any CPR records we searched did not make mention who built the spans. Dominion Bridge seems like a likely candidate though. They were the largest such firm in the country, by a fair stretch.

Spans were a deck plate style, so open topped with support beams underneath. All were the same.

The structure was straight for most of its length. One the east end, so the side we visited, there was a curve with an obvious cant (or super-elevation). This suggests track speeds here were fairly brisk. Embedded in the piers are some old rails which helped reinforced the leading edge against wear from moving ice and the like.

Blocking most of the structure from view is a large island. What we can see from this position is perhaps one quarter of its length! The South Saskatchewan sure is a wide water course. In hindsight, your author should have climbed up the river valley a bit to get an overall better view. Not sure why it failed to cross my mind. Next time. Next time!

The line here, from Empress to Leader Saskatchewan was closed in around 1990 – the east end still sees trains though. Since the coal markets died in the 1960s traffic was a mere trickle here anyway. Soon afterwards the spans were removed. It’s understood many were reused in other places. Into the late 1990s, a number of them languished away in the old Empress Alberta rail yards. The nearest community to the structure was Estuary Saskatchewan but it’s a ghost town now.

The last passengers run to cross over the bridge was in the early 1960s.

A few hours before that very same day we tried to approach the bridge from the west side, with the land owner’s permission, but were turned back several kilometres away due to a slump in the road. Actually the old railway bed turned road. Hiking in would have been an option any other day but not this one. By the way there is very little civilization within sight of the bridge and at best limited access via very rough roads, or on the west side, no roads at all (anyway recall it’s private land there). You could of course canoe or kayak in. The river is big but come mid-summer is quite placid.

Given the scarcity of photos found, online or elsewhere, from any date, it’s clear the structure was or is rarely ever visited. Few know of it so we feel extra special that we got to experience its splendour. It sure is impressive! What a thrill it would have been to crossing it on a train.

On this adventure we hung around with good friends Jason and Rebecca Sailer of Lethbridge. A big thanks goes out to them. I think Jason was as thrilled to see the structure as I was. I’ve been dreaming of visiting it for decades, even since I saw it in a Greg McDonnell book. If you’d like to host or join up with BIGDoer.com on a some trip, drop us a line. We love to collaborate.

The subdivision’s namesake town…
Empress Alberta then and now.

More bridges…
east Coulee’s historic wood bridge.
Bridge Hunting – Rosebud River Valley.
Bridge Hunting – Bullpound Alberta (a connecting “coal” line).

If you wish more information on what you’ve seen here, by all means contact us!

Date: June, 2016.
Location: Eastern Saskatchewan.
Article references: CPR timetables, records and archives.
Land around the bridge is privately owned.

Empress Subdivision Bridge

Remains of the CPR’s Empress Subdivision Bridge.

CPR South Saskatchewan Bridge

What we can see here is a but small portion of the entire structure.

Estuary SK train bridge

The line closed around 1990 and the decks removed shortly after.

58 responses

  1. Kevin Blakely says:

    I am really enjoying your photos. If I remember correctly many of the steel spans from this bridge were used to replace timber trestles on other lines. I can not remember the exact locations but they were probably in SASK. The lengths of the spans were perfect to allow placement of new concrete piers exactly between the bents (timber piers) of the timber trestles (so the piers could be constructed and traffic maintained over the trestles during most of construction). I was working in the Bridge Dept at CPR in Montreal at the time. Cheers.

    • We heard that before and it makes complete sense given the frugal nature of railways. They were recycling before it was cool. That sure was a lot of spans! When we visited Empress in the 1990s, there was a number of them sitting down by the old rail yard.

  2. Sheri Graham says:

    Wow, thank you all so much for sharing! The time for researching the history, the pictures, your personal time is greatly appreciated!! Love your site!

  3. Garry Miller says:

    This was a secondary mainline built by CPR to bypass the pusher grades on both sides of Medicine Hat. Lots of grain used to go this way.

  4. Michael LeBaron says:

    Once the mainstay of commerce, now an eerie ghost.

  5. Roy Heckler says:

    Sentinels to the past? Was a new, better crossing built?

  6. Jason Paul Sailer says:

    Aww yes I remember that was fun to see up close!

  7. Eric May says:

    Quite interesting to see all of the piers on Google maps.

  8. Jackie Boros says:

    I guess it would be too expensive to remove them. Nice photos.

  9. Richard C Lowe says:

    Sad ending.

  10. Roberta Strangeway says:

    Amazing – I’d love to see old pics of when it was in use.

  11. Richard Graydon says:

    Another good story that as usual led me to do some digging. Interesting history of the line. Thanks guys.

  12. Wenda Steinley says:

    A bridge of my youth. I remember crossing the bridge by foot with my girl friends, even though we knew the rail schedule we imagined that we could hear one coming, thrilling and scary.

  13. Steven Manders says:

    They always take the valuable scrap iron and leave the concrete for the next thousand years.

    • It’s just too expensive to remove. In the 1990s a number of the removed spans sat at near the Empress Yards. I suspect some were reused elsewhere.

  14. Patti Crews-McMorran says:

    My Dad worked this line back in the 50’s-60’s for the CPR. It was known as the Empress Grain Train. Not sure if the bunkhouse is still standing in Empress. Very big grain -producing area requiring its own line. How he would have enjoyed your site!

  15. Tyson Craney says:

    I’ve been there dozens of times. Popular fishing spot for locals at one time. This spot is near the enigmatic early trading post of Fort Chesterfield.

  16. Joyce Smith says:

    so sad

  17. Glen Bowe says:

    It sounds like these old bridge supports are surrounded by private land so the public can’t view it. Too bad as this would become a destination if it was more accessible. Still, I’m glad to at least be able to read about it in my favourite blog.

  18. Ted Vanderwekken says:

    There is a train bridge SW of Red Deer that was abandoned 30 something years ago. It was originally the ACR line.

  19. Brad Kinchen says:

    Shortest route from Swift Current to Calgary.

  20. Kevin says:

    Hi Chris & Connie,

    Me again. I found this youtube video you and your readers might be interested in. It talks about the very bridge and rail bed you visited from what I have researched.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpH6z5ClpKw

    If i find any more info about this bridge, I will share it with you.

    Cheers

  21. Richard Onorevole says:

    Excellent post!

  22. Jim Griffin says:

    Everything the CPR built around that time has been abandoned!

  23. Jim Griffin says:

    Love this kind of post! The huge piers look like ancient Egyptian monuments – and monuments they are – to an era of railroad expansion. Fascinating!

  24. David McKinstry says:

    (via Facebook)
    You finally made it! Get in from the west side as well?

  25. Donna Dave Rouse says:

    (via Facebook)
    Been there! Kayaked the river.

  26. Zsolt Dobray says:

    Thank you for sharing this. And keep up the good work.

  27. I was excited! Glad we checked it out, and am looking forward to seeing the west end.

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