The orange beam in the background  is part of 3 pillars depicting the viaduct on a  larger scale and it dominates dominates that portion of the exhibition floor.  Some 
of the explanations in the following captions are copied
from the two panels to the left and others researched.
The viaduct features 33 towers in total, employed 100 workers and cost $1.33 million; which today would 
amount to billions. Close-ups of this fine model are 
seen in adjacent pictures, all taken on April 11th, 2014.

The chief engineer was John Edward Schweitzer 
(April 1870 � January 1911), who worked for the
CPR,  while the bridge was built by the Canadian
Bridge Company of Walkerville, Ontario.

Another project for which Mr. Schweitzer is widely 
known for,  is the construction of the famous CPR 
Spirals Tunnels west of Lake Louise, covered 
extensively at 
http://yourrailwaypictures.com/Tunnels/

Over 12,000 tonnes of steel and 13,000 cubic
metres of concrete became necessary to assemble
the steel bridge, also called a viaduct, in 1909. 
At 1.6 km long and 100 metres high, it is the longest
structure of its kind in the world.

The two hoses on back lead to a smaller unit, which, 
along with the larger unit moved forward, feeding
compressed air to the riveting crew on platforms
below. The exhaust stack for the steam-powered
crane can be seen about the upper middle of the 
picture. View the period picture on the page,
for the set-up

The viaduct has a slight ascent westward of 0.4% 
and has no tangents (curves). Additional precautions 
were taken because of severe winds usually 
experienced in the area, it was decided to build
the sides in such a way that a train wouldn't be 
running off the bridge deck. The bridge is erected 
on concrete pedestals.

Whereas old style trestles had small platforms to hold 
water barrels and seek refuge and  a pedestrian on the
bridge could seek refuge there while a train happens, 
the Lethbridge viaduct does not have this extra safety feature. From rail to river is a drop of 314 ft.

In the middle, the road is Whoop-Up Drive. 
The view overlooks Boterhill Bottom Park (near)
and Indian Battle Park (center), the latter featured 
on this page

It greatly shortened the distance and lessened the grades when it was built in 1908-1909 to replace a series of short bridges. The steel for this bridge was brought by rail in pieces from the Dominion Bridge Company of Walkerville Ontario and assembled with the famous �erector� which had constructed the big one.  The Monarch Bridge stands 
48m above the Oldman River and measures 576m end to end, while the Lethbridge Viaduct is about a kilometer
longer, but still massive and a sight to see. Situated on the CPR Crownest Sub., it sees occasional from the US into Calgary, which has or will pass on its bigger cousin. 

The GPS location of the bridge is approximately 49º48�6�N 113º12�09.4W.  The best vantage point is aroud a curve
from Highway 3 (where this photo was taken from a moving bus on April 13th, 2014) but there are roads leading right 
to it. Another notable rail bridge in the area is located at Carmangay on the CPR Alderside Sub. It looks like this one
but is smaller and newer (1927). View it at https://albertacommunityprofiles.com/Profile/Carmangay/255 or better still: http://www.railpictures.net/photo/404342/

Published data puts it at 150m long (just short of 500 ft.) and 44m high (just short of 150 ft.). In its time, the Carmangay trestle was the longest for its height. Excellent close-ups photos of the trestle from various angles at http://www.bigdoer.com/6720/exploring-history/bridge-hunting-carmangay-alberta/

When CN abandoned rail service in 1999, ten municipalities and a volunteer organization worked together to
acquire the 300km. long corridor and it became part of what is now called the Iron Horse section of the 
Trans Canada Trail, linking Cold Lake Alberta, to Northwestern Saskatchewan with many small towns 
along the way.

It took two years after ownership was secured in 2001, in order to have the corridor in good enough shape for
multi-use as a recreation trail. Opened in June of 2003, it  has since grown to be the region's largest tourist 
attraction with an average of 20,000 users per year http://travelalberta.com/Things%20to%20Do/Scenic%20Routes/Iron%20Horse%20Trail.aspx

The trestle was damaged in June 2012 after a lit car was pushed off the north end embankment, became 
lodged in the trestle and set the structure ablaze, the latest fire to the structure. A fund was then set up to
repair the trestle and make it an area attraction again for walkers, bicycle riders and motorized transport, 
such as ATVs in the summer and snowmobiles in winter.

Between 1881 and 1885, as the CPR was pushing west,
speculators were buying lots in what is now the Inglewood District, in the hope of selling their land to the  railway 
and make a large profit. After having safely secured the lands across the Elbow River to the west of Fort Calgary, particularly the strip along where the Palliser Hotel now stands, CPR announced that its townsite would be situated there and the speculators went bust, as a good deal of
citizens decided to move their gear across the ice the following winter and settle into the new townsite, which became Calgary.

The train on the bridge, is most probably what is known locally as "The Keith Turn"; heading back to Alyth classification Yard, from the CPR overflow yard (Keith)
on the west side of Stoney Trail in Northwest Calgary. http://www.matthicksphoto.com/railway-photography/
canadian-pacific/3071-keith-1.jpg.php

Notice the two different paint schemes on the diesels

Service was discontinued shortly thereafter

The train is inbound for Alyth and the view looks east 
along the Bow River from an area behind the Calgary 
Zoo in the early 2000s. Bengal is roughly situated below
the Calgary Herald Building to the east, or the Telus
Spark science centre to the west. Access my bridge page
for several photos of a round culvert train tunnel there.

The bridge opened in 1913, linking Edmonton to 
South Edmonton (Strathcona).
 CPR  ceased operations on the bridge in 1989 
Still an imposing structure, (755 m long and 49 m high),
it served as a transfer link between the South Edmonton station (see my Stations page) and the CNR downtown, until its  yard
 was bulldozed, to build the Grant McEwan University downtown campus. 
Rail used the top deck, while cars,  transit buses and
pedestrians use wooden sidewalks on both sides of the
lower deck. Trucks are prohibited on the bridge. 

On the opposite side from this view is, a "waterfall" higher than Niagara Falls, which operates during holiday weekends. 

In the foreground is the Edmonton Transit LRT,
across the North Saskatchewan Riverto the 
University of Alberta and beyond. 
For more details on this bridge see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Level_Bridge_(Edmonton)

During summer, the Edmonton Radial Railway Society
operates a streetcar on the uppper deck. 
The photo shows a view of downtown Edmonton from the streetcar. 
In a few minutes, it will arrive at Grandin Station (one stop
from downtown), after having left Old Strathcona and gone through a former CPR  tunnel.
A ride on this private right-of-way is worth every penny. 
http://www.edmonton-radial-railway.ab.ca/ 

This an Edmonton Radial Railway's alternate tramway, 
(Melbourne # 930 - built 1947)
which the Edmonton Radial Railway Society uses during the
busy summer season, in addition to their Osaka #2 streetcar shown elsewhere.
http://www.edmonton-radial-railway.ab.ca/streetcars
All their tramways have been lovingly restored by volunteers 
in their carbarn, next to Old Strathcona Farmers' Market.
This view looks toward the city from the south shore of the 
North Saskatchewan River.

According to ERRS  history, the bridge deck
had 3 tracks and the CPR used the center tracks.
The operation was left hand running, so that if the street
cars became disabled, passengers wouldn't have to step
out in space. But there were never any accident and the
operation ran  accident-free until abandonment in 1951.

The photo was taken on the rainy day in August 2010, while awaiting an inbound run of the CPR 2816 through the
bridges, about 6 miles or so from City Center on the CPR Laggan Sub.
In the near background is the 85 St. road bridge and beyond is Stoney Trail, the future ring road around Calgary. 
Under Stoney Trail is Keith Yard, basically the overflow
for the Alyth classification yard, used by the CPR for
longer term storage.

A bonus is that every train going through the twin bridges 
both ways must sound the horn, as the train comes around 
a curve westbound.   A favorite rite of passage for teens 
was (and still is) to jump  into the Bow River from the 
very top of the structures. Now the tracks are fenced 
off and CPR police patrols the area regularly, 
with a $200+ fine for trespassing. 

Freight trains run through there, either eastbound or
westbound about every hour, carrying grain, sulphur,
potash or containers on flatcars (double stack COFC)
 between Calgary and Vancouver.
Most are a mile or more in length, with Distributed Power,  usually 2 diesels in font, one in the middle and sometime
one at the end. 

Laggan Sub is the original Canadian Pacific Railway
mainline east and west, built in the late 1800s and
upgraded several times over. The Empress 2816, 
Royal Canadian Pacific and Rocky Mountaineer pass
through there regularly. A medium telephoto lens will
capture individual bridges nicely from that viewpoint,
if need be. 

We can use the Calgary Tower to the extreme left as 
a reference point to compare the two photos. In Larry's photo, the silver road bridge to the left has now been removed but we can observe how close Ogden Road 
comes to the CPR tracks and it remains so, for about
a mile. (Those without their own transportation will
want to use Calgary Transit Route 24). 

The strip in the centre of Massey's picture is a part 
of a 28 km bicycle pathway passing under the CN Bridge 
and connecting with others in to the downtown core,
while the Irrigation Canal in the foreground provides 
water from the Bow River to farmlands southwest of 
Calgary. A side view of the timber bridge over the 
canal is shown elsewhere on this page.

To the right is the CN interchange bridge, featured on
this page, bringing cars from its nearby Sarcee Yard to 
the CP Alyth Yard. Also seen in a distance is the pulldown tower (which controls the hump yard) and the 12 Street Tower, which controls movements on the  Red Deer, Macleod, Brooks and Laggan Subs; north, south, east
and west out of Calgary.

The large chimney about the middle is the Alyth Diesel 
Shop complex. Improvements to the yard in the late 80s 
or middle 90s removed the chimney and expanded the 
shop to accommodate larger diesels.

This view looks just about straight north from a point 
around 50 Ave and Ogden Road in southeast Calgary.

This view looks northeast at 3 pm the next day, 
June 28th. The large bridge in the background is an interchange CN bridge connecting the CN Sarcee Yard
and CP Alyth Yard.  The rising water also damaged a
lot of the shore and flows from left to right in this picture.

In the back of the worker are the wooden ties
from the nearby CN bridge seen elsewhere 
on the page.
 

This is the other side of the bridge frequently seen in
photos of the damaged Bonnybrook Bridge below.

Notice its proximity to the downtown core. Railcars in
the background to the right are in Alyth Yard.

The track crosses a  paved cycle pathway to the left,
which continues from the regular (700 km) network from 
just east of downtown (near the Max Bell Arena) and
runs 26 km to Chestermere, a  bedroom community
east of the Calgary city limits. To the far left are the
CPR Bonnybrook Bridge tracks, damaged in June 2013. 

The bridge beyond is a CN transfer bridge into
CP's Alyth Yard. 

Yard movements and through trains now use the final
portion of the Brooks Sub to enter and exit Alyth Yard.

All yard movements and mainline now use a separate 
bridge, built later, on the far side of the collapsed bridge.
The track and bridge at the very top in a distance,
 is a CN interchange into the CP Alyth Yard. 

The Bow River pathway, a popular shortcut for
commuter cyclists trying to avoid street traffic from downtown, ran under the CN and CP bridges was
heavily damaged by the June flood and repaired by end-October 2013.

The cycle in front is part of 140 mile Bow River
Pathway system and to the left, passes under the Bonnybrook Bridge, then the CN bridge in the 
background, before reaching downtown, about 5 miles 
away, following the bike path around Alyth Yard.

The train is on the mainline and not the bridge, which 
is mainly used now mainly for switching in and out of
the yard or for local loads.

CP 8816 is on the adjacent 1971 bridge (about Mile
170 Brooks Sub), eastbound out of Alyth Yard
with a heavy load of more than 150 cars, perhaps 
deemed too heavy for the iconic 1912  bridge now.

There are 3 different kinds of bridges actually 
shown here. In the foreground is the CN truss bridge,
linking their Sarcee Yard to the CP Alyth Yard, and
then in the middle  the 1971 deck bridge (CP mainline approximately Mile 170 Brooks Sub) and finally in a distance, the 1912 pony bridge now freshly repaired;
in this view taken exactly a year after the flood on
June 23, 2014.

The motive power is CP 8614 in front and CP 8737
in the back.

While the action is not what it used to be
(CPR doesn�t like full yards), there is steady action 
going on to make up trains.

An alternate train watching spot (from overhead) is the Blackfoot Trail overpass in the background. 
Unfortunately for railfans, the sidewalk location was 
changed during reconstruction from the �good side� overlooking major yard action and the diesel shop to 
the north side, overlooking the action below seen here
from the ground. Blackfoot Tr. is accessible from 
Ogden Rd. or 9 Ave SE. Parking is at a premium or
a short walk is required, if taking the bus. No transit
goes on top of the overpass.

In this view, CP 2222 (GP20C-ECO) and CP 4428
(GP38-2) are actively switching, while in the middle,
we find CP 5985 (SD40-2), CP3049 (GP38-2) and
CP 2232, another GP20C-ECO. Within the half-hour, 
the GE locomotives by the white pickup truck will 
couple to those on the far side and pull a mile-long
mixed freight to Edmonton on the Red Deer Sub, to 
the extreme left centre.  The curving rail in front is a sidetrack now holding CP 3088 (GP38-2).

Constructed in 1903, the canal diverts water from the
Bow River into a 26 km waterway that drains from just
east of the Calgary downtown into Chestermere Lake,
a man-made reservoir  built in the 1880s by the CPR. 
The irrigation canal then continues on its course and
serves well over 400 farms in parched 
Southwestern Alberta 

It was originally a wood trestle bridge built over the
Blindman River north of Red Deer in 1910 by the
Canadian Northern Western Railway (now the CNR). 
The middle was eventually replaced by a steel truss
bridge with trestle ends. The length is around 620 feet 
and it is still being used by CN. 

Source: http://www.forthjunction.com/railway-bridges
-alberta.htm

The photo on their page doesn�t show the concrete
piers but it contains descriptions and views of all 
the major Alberta bridges.

Approaching the bridge

Built in 1948 likely by the CNR, the bridge is now 
still a prized local landmark and historical site but has
fallen into disrepair and no one wants to pay for the restoration. Access: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQg4gxCizHw
to view the present condition inside the bridge.

Near Bengal (Mile 1.1 Laggan Sub), it will switch 
east to the Meridian Yard lead and pass through a 
round culvert-type tunnel under Deerfoot Trail
(see Larry Buchan�s pictureshown below and 
climb a very steep grade to deliver its load at
The Calgary Herald building, up the hill. 

The locomotive is an SW1200RS, built by General 
Motors in June 1958 (ser# A1486).  It was removed
from service in August 1999 and sold to Louis 
Dreyfus Corp in the US. The RS designation means
that it�s also fit for road service, by being coupled
to other locomotives as extra power on the mainline.

We would gather up our loads of sulfur and LPG tanks, 
we were limited to  5 cars a unit, usually having a 2 units, later on in the 90s we had 3 units so we can handle 15 
cars. We would take off down  hill from the plant over 
this rickety wooden trestle and a speed as high as we 
could to get a 
swing at the  hill on the other side, if everything worked
out okay in the units it was snow trouble we would have 
a successful trip, otherwise we would leave half of our 
train, and take the rest over to a doubling spur, and go 
back for the second portion.

Petro at mile 11.7 is where the Rockyview Spur leaves 
the Red Deer Sub going eastward 4.06 miles to service 
the Canadian Oxy Petroleum sulfur plant, and Turbo 
refinery in its day about a quarter of a mile from the
junction is this wooden trestle over Nose Creek. While
all the plants are shut down now the Turbo refinery was bought by Petro Canada and dismantled and shipped to
the Far East, the Spurs still remains sitting dormant, but there our plans afoot for the possibility of it servicing 
a new  Target warehouse facility in the future.

Estimated to be 570 to 590 feet long (about 200 
metres) and it was constructed in 1910 by the 
Canada Northwestern Railway, now CN and is 
still in use a century later to move material and 
equipment to and from oil and gas customers on
the Brazeau Sub.
Google Earth roughly situates it at 52º.20�.17�N 
and 113º.54�.12�W. The nearest coordinates in 
direct line,  are very roughly about 2.5 miles
(4km) west of the Queen Elizabeth II Highway 
(Alberta Highway 2) and 1.7 mile (2.74 km) exactly 
due north of 11A Highway.
Unfortunately, the trestle is not close to any public 
viewing point.

D. Grant Watson has property that is as close as one can get to this bridge and he has made off to any rail fan that wanted to photograph this trestle to make an appointment with him to do so via email at:
 nospam-grantwatson@nospam-hotmail.com
 Please remove the two nospam- from this address to use it.
 

Briggs is at Mile 38.0 between Alix Jct and Brazeau.

A footnote in the Time Table indicates that movements 
must not be operated beyond mileage 96.0, except by
special authorization.

In the background, the Calgary Tower and CP 
Corporate HQ on 9th Avenue SW, with CPR 
locomotive #29 on display in front of their building. 
(See the CPR page: http://yourrailwaypictures.com/CPRsteamengines/). 
If you have some time to spare between Greyhound 
buses, the overpass links the bus terminal with the 
LRT station. 

For all you steam fans, this page is a must

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