Canadian Pacific transcontinental main line

Assembled from 18 blocks · 2 evidence · 20 related

1. Story
2. The line from Montreal to the Pacific completed on 7 November 1885, when Donald A. Smith drove the last spike at Craigellachie in Eagle Pass, British Columbia — bending the first spike, which he kept. It was built to a political deadline: a transcontinental railway was British Columbia's condition for entering Confederation. Speed of construction was paid for in gradient. Rather than wait for a tunnel through Mount Stephen, the builders took the Big Hill over Kicking Horse Pass at about 4.4 to 4.5 per cent, among the steepest adhesion grades ever worked by a main-line railway, and lived with runaways for a quarter of a century until the Spiral Tunnels opened on 1 September 1909 and brought the ruling grade down to 2.2 per cent. Every scenic passenger service on this line today is riding a compromise made in 1884.
3. Knowledge
4. Canadian Pacific transcontinental main line
5. Ruling gradient
6. Connections
7. Ruling gradient
8. The last spike is driven at Craigellachie
9. The Spiral Tunnels open and the Big Hill is retired
10. Trans-Siberian Railway
11. Canadian Pacific transcontinental main line
12. The main-line steam locomotive
13. The last spike is driven at Craigellachie
14. The Spiral Tunnels open and the Big Hill is retired
15. The Severomuysky Tunnel opens under the BAM's worst obstacle
16. Evidence
17. Supports Donald A. Smith driving the last spike at Craigellachie, British Columbia, on 7 November 1885, bending the first spike and keeping it, completing the railway that fulfilled British Columbia's condition of entering Confederation. V55 verification basis: the substance was carried in an attributed search result naming The Canadian Encyclopedia; the page was not fetched.
18. Supports the Big Hill's original grade of about 4.4–4.5 per cent over Kicking Horse Pass and its reduction to 2.2 per cent by the Spiral Tunnels, built 1907–1909. V55 verification basis: the Parks Canada page was returned in search but not fetched; the grade figures and the 1 September 1909 opening were carried in accompanying Canadian rail-history summaries and differ between sources on 4.4 versus 4.5 per cent.