CPR Crowsnest Railyard (Summit Lake)

The Crowsnest Pass of Southwestern Alberta draws us in like a magnet and we’re regular visitors. If you’ve followed our exploits for a bit, however, then you already knew we had a romance going on. Today our subject is the CPR Crowsnest Railyard at Summit Lake, at the west end of the “Pass” and the comparison views seen here were captured forty years apart. It’s Then & Now time and we’re going to babble on endlessly!

Our respective shooting positions puts us just inside British Columbia and the border itself runs not far behind that one distant building seen in both photos. The one at the base of a hill on the right and today partly obscured by trees. It’s a former hotel but now a private home connected to a rental cabin business. The latter are to its right and out of sight.

A number of write ups state the border runs right through the hotel, but on any maps we’ve seen it’s somewhat behind. Still, it’s quite close. This situation has given rise to many legends and certainly some are a bit questionable. One mentions it was a cross-border long distance call from one side of the building to the other. Another speaks of confusion over liquor regulations which varied depending on the province you were drinking in. For example, the legal drinking age differed between the two.

A third tells of rain water reaching two different oceans based on which side of the roof it fell. The border matches up with the Continental Divide around here, which according to the rules, determines the direction a river will flow. To the east, water heads to the Atlantic and to the west, the Pacific.

Some have been repeated so many times and for so long that they’re widely accepted as truths. Make of them what you will.

The Summit Hotel goes back about a hundred and twenty five years but the current building is the second one here. It replaced the first in the early ’20s after a disastrous fire. This structure is about the only thing left of the town of Crowsnest itself, which sprang to life with the coming of the railway, but soon fell into decline.

Speaking of trains…

The Canadian Pacific built through the area in the late 1890s and Crowsnest made a division point. So it’s where crew changes happened – tired ones stopped for a rest and fresh ones took over. Generally your next run, after a little sleepy time, had you heading in the reverse direction to take you back to your home terminal. Locomotives were often fuelled or serviced at this point. Some train marshalling might be done to help balance out tonnage as well.

Division points were spaced according to a formula taking into account distance, average operating speeds and line density. Crews only have a certain amount of time (12 hours typically) before they have to book off and so these were spaced accordingly.

Crowsnest lost it’s division status many decades ago and crew swaps now happen further west thanks to improved operating efficiencies. So about twenty clicks away in the coal mining community of Sparwood. And Canadian Pacific is now Canadian Pacific Kansas City.

Even though the town of Crowsnest was already a distant memory by the time of the original photo capture in ’83, you can still see it’s a busy place thanks to the railway. There’s a good sized yard, lots of arrival and departure tracks (a few remain), numerous storage buildings and a turntable. The pit is still there, but filled in and can be found in the grass.

There was also a bunkhouse off frame to the left and train offices. That huge tank in back was for fuel storage but it’s not clear if it remained in use by the ’80s.

Numerous hopper cars can be seen on the turntable lead and in the yard. These might be company service ballast cars or coal cars awaiting the call to action. You can see piles of replacement ties scattered about and the Crowsnest yard also functioned as a staging area for right-of-way maintenance crews. Other buildings in back (in front of the hotel) were homes for railway employees stationed here and while one remains today, it’s hidden in the trees.

A trio of the CPR’s ubiquitous SD40-2 series locomotives (l to r, #5861, #5596 and #5672) can be seen down there. On close inspection, a crew member can be spotted on the furthest unit and this, plus that the lights are on, suggests the consist is in motion. The railway had hundreds of these locomotives and they seemingly powered most mainline trains of the era. This model became one of the best selling models of all time and they were popular with other railways too. You can still find some in service and that’s all over North America.

This trio dates from 1978, 1972 and 1973 respectively and while the first two were off the roster by the end of the 1990s, the last one remained in service well into the 2000s. It still lives on, sort of, and became parts fodder for a newly constructed SD30C-Eco locomotive built about ten years ago.

A train occupies the main track and there’s a mix of cars in the consist. This includes many empty bulkheads, a single boxcar and a string of what appears to be loaded coal cars. The former were often used to carry lumber, so this suggests they’re westbound to be loaded up at any number of BC sawmills served by the railway. The coal may have come from the last mine in the Crowsnest Pass, which was in operation at this time, but closed soon after. This material also travelled west and eventually made it to the coast for shipment overseas.

The direction of travel is only a guess on our part and nothing more.

This track today a conduit for trains headed to and from the US. Grain and potash movements seem quite common. There’s also traffic coming and going from the West Kootenay region of BC. In the past, you could go all the way to the coast on the Crowsnest Line but it’s been well-trimmed back over the years.

Not all that long ago one would see eastbound coal trains from the Sparwood/Elkford area, but that business seems to have dried up. The output from those mines now heads west to the coast and on to Asia. Coal these days is a dirty word.

Summit Lake occupies most of the valley and it’s about a kilometre long and a few hundred metre wide. It seems to a be popular fishing spot.

Interestingly, the highway from where we both shot used to be down by the tracks and is buried under a mountain of fill when some rerouting took place in the 1970s. The ugly haze in the photos comes thanks to smoke from distant forest fires.

The Then photo is from the John Bjorklund collection at the Centre for Railway Photography and Art. This group has given permission to use other train-related images of his and so we’ll be doing more posts like down the road.

If you have an old photo (your copyright) that shows a train scene like this, a street or a town scene and would like us to give it the Then & Now treatment, please contact us. We simple love doing these!

Know more (new tabs): Crowsnest Pass @ Summit Lake, Centre for Railway Photography & Art and John Bjorklund Train Photos.

They’re saying…

”Chris and Connie are the real deal – their adventures are truly interesting and fun!” Justine Cooke.

Random T&N awesomeness…
SAIT Heritage Hall (Built Early 1920s).
Old Slocan Highway.
Currie Barracks Parade Square.

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Date of Adventure: 1983 (John Bjorklund) and July 2023.
Location(s): CPR Crownest Pass @ Summit Lake on the AB/BC border.
Article references and thanks: John Bjorklund collection at the Centre for Railway Photography & Art, Book: Crowsnest & Its People, Canadian Trackside Guides and BC Ministry of Transportation.

CPR Crowsnest forty years apart. Original J Bjorklund.

Summit Lake reverse view – haze is from distant forest fires.

The former yard is now a grassy field.