by George Chambers
Fig-1 Last spike monument at the rest stop on Highway 1 near Craigellachie, B.C.
While on a trip this past September to the Canadian Rockies to visit Yoho, Banff, Jasper and Kootenay National Parks my wife Sally and I did some train spotting on the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in British Columbia and Alberta. On the way to Revelstoke we stopped at a rest area on Highway 1 near Craigellachie. This is the place where on November 7, 1885 the last spike was driven to complete the building of the CPR. There is a stone monument with brass plaques at this historical place (Fig 1). The restroom and gift shop are both built to look like depots. While there, an eastbound empty coal train came by (Fig 2). We were spending the night in Revelstoke, so had the afternoon to visit the Revelstoke Railway Museum for the CPR. Inside on display is a Mikado class P-2k #5468 and business car #4 built in 1929 that you can walk through (Fig 5). There are also many photo displays, two wooden bridges, and a display with CPR tracks, ferry boat and car barges all built in HO scale (Fig 4). The two wooden bridges have old time CPR trains on them, complete with old NMRA hook horn couplers (Fig 3). Upstairs in the second story mezzanine is an HO scale CPR layout modeling the Rogers Pass – Clanwilliam Lake (west of Revelstoke) area with nice scenery, buildings and bridges.
