Steel Rails and Iron Men: A Pictorial History of the Kettle Valley Railway

A.A. den Otter is a professor of History at the Memorial University of
Newfoundland.

Steel Rails and Iron Men is a shortened and lavishly illustrated version
of the author’s earlier McCulloch’s Wonder. For the general reader
with only a mild interest in railways, this newer edition—with its
abundant photographs of spectacular scenery, rickety mountain trestles,
and steaming locomotives—will be the preferred read. Well written, the
text is short and to-the-point. The numerous dates and names, which
often make more-academic and -detailed studies dull, are conveniently
placed in tables scattered throughout the book. In fact, this technique
makes Sanford’s latest book the best introduction to southern British
Columbia’s complex railway history.

Built around the turn of the century, the Kettle Valley Railway
challenged the most difficult mountain ranges in British Columbia,
particularly the Coquihalla Pass, which forced the company to create 12
tunnels, 43 bridges, and 15 snowsheds. Built at five times the average
cost, its construction is a dramatic story. Eventually, however, the
project ended in failure: after a 1959 storm seriously damaged the
roadbed, the Coquihalla section was closed. In this case, technology did
not overcome the forces of nature.

Although Sanford correctly emphasizes the continental struggle between
the Canadian Pacific Railway and Great Northern as the impetus for
building the Kettle Valley system, he cannot quite abandon the romantic
notion that railways conquer nature and build nations. On the other
hand, his focus on the Kettle Valley system as expanding outward from
interior British Columbia, rather than as part of the Crowsnest route,
provides an interesting twist.