I just got home from a trip aboard the Rocky Mountaineer tourist train in Canada. I have posted photos in my Railimages album. Was an awesome trip for someone stuck on the flat lands of Gulf Coast Texas. Here is just a sample. I will be adding more as I have time.
Nice pictures. I have wanted to take that trip but just haven't had the time. On a trip to Banff I did follow the tracks across to Revelstoke and it made me want to take the trip even more. What did you think of the curved tunnel they have? They also have a great railroad museum in Revelstoke.
I really have to get back there and do more touring on the ground. The museum at Revelstoke looked really nice as we rolled by. The surveying and engineering that went into blasting those spiral tunnels was quite impressive for over 100 years ago. No lasers or GPS yet they dug from both ends and met exactly in the middle. That is on a curved grade too. An then the Connaught Tunnel is 5 miles long under Rogers Pass. The CP went through a lot of expense to build over the southern route just to keep them pesky Americans from encroaching from the south. The CN had a much easier go of it going up over Yellow Head Pass. That is until they got to Kamloops and had to build down the opposite side of the canyon from there to Vancouver than the CP. The CP being there first took the best passage leaving most of the avalanche zones along the canyon for the CN to deal with. In stead of snow sheds the CN built covers to divert the rock slides over the tracks.
There's a pull off on the highway where the curved tunnel is and we watched a tourist train go through. It was amazing to watch. At the railroad museum they have and HO scale model of the rail facilities at Revelstoke. Well worth the visit.
Fall colors. I think it was some sort of marsh grass as it was in the flat areas on either side of the slow meandering river at that point. Or just a prairie grass of some variety.
looks to me as though that may be the fields near Golden, B.C. So that would be a grain of some sort, maybe alfalfa? Does it turn colour?
I would agree with some kind of grass. Alfalfa would have been harvested long before it got to this point.
I posted a few more photos to my album. http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/showgallery.php/cat/2546 Here is one of them. The view after the summit at Kicking Horse Pass on the BC side.
