Fort MacLeod railway bridge
The massive railway bridge seen here has not been used for years and once belong to the Canadian Pacific Railway. It spans the Oldman River near Fort MacLeod Alberta and was partially damaged by the spring 2013 floods. This was just a cursory visit to gauge how the structure was affected by that event. As it turns out it did not appear to have suffered to any great extent with the only obvious problem being an undercut abutment on the north end. Otherwise, it looked fine (the CPR always overbuilt things).
The railway line here was last used perhaps a decade of so ago, and was subsequently pulled up. The bridge was left in place, likely as it’d be too costly to remove. This section of track was the CPR’s MacLeod Subdivision which ran from Calgary to Fort MacLeod.
Connie and I plan to revisit the bridge at some point in the future, to document it further. It’s interesting enough to warrant a more detailed report of its own.
There is no public access to this bridge!
To see some nearby railway ruins we explored the year before, go here…
Fort MacLeod turntable and roundhouse remains.
Short Subjects: reports that for any number of reasons are brief in nature. They might be updates to older articles, previews of posts not yet published, brief snippets of things that don’t fit in anywhere else or subjects that are so obscure that information on them can’t be found.
If you need any more information on what we talked about here, by all means contact us!
Date of adventure: July, 2014.
Location: Fort MacLeod, AB.
Still a great photo even after 5 years!
Thanks. Goodness, some of our stuff goes back a long time.
I would love to see a more detailed report on abandoned Macleod Subdivision. I have seen this bridges a number of times and always wanted to explore them, so it is great you got permission to get his close.
I’ve been working on a piece in regards to the grain elevators on that line. But it may take a while to finish. The centre span, by the way, fell into the river since our visit and was recently dragged back to shore on the north side.
Too sad that this line got scrapped. Had fond memories looking out the car window when we headed up and back from Calgary along hwy 2.
I too recall watching trains pass by where the tracks were close to the highway (and it was in many places).
howd u get there…thought it was private property?
It is, and as such permission is required by the landowner to get close to it.