Planned Railway Line Empress Alberta

In the first few decades of the twentieth century a huge number of railway branch lines were built across the Western Canadian plains. Look at any old time map and see. It was a messy spaghetti-bowl of track, running this way and that with reckless abandon, to near every town or village and what appears to be with little forethought in respects to the long term viability of the whole scheme. Still they built. A railway boom was on after all (most of these lines are gone now).

Crazy as it may seem, even more track was planned including a line that was to run north from Empress Alberta. While considered to some degree, nothing really happened here. Plans were put in place, clearly, but obviously they had second thoughts, an extremely rare case of siding with caution during this frenzied period.

Planned Railway Line Empress Alberta: never built, but given some thought. Researched, written and photographed by Chris Doering and Connie Biggart (BIGDoer/Synd)

The Canadian Pacific Railway built a line through Empress Alberta in the 1910s. It connected with the firm’s mainline at Bassaano Alberta, paralleled it a bit to the north for some three hundred and fifty clicks before the two reconnected a short distance east of Swift Current Saskatchewan. While it was planned as a major secondary line, in the end was just another sleepy “grain branch”. Even so, a good amount of coal traffic did polish the rails here, (post late-1920s and into the 1960s) coming out of the Drumheller area, to the west via a connecting line, and heading east.

↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ Scroll down for photos and to comment ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓

Around the time the coal started moving, the CPR investigated exploiting markets to the north. That commodity was more profitable than grain so any chance to make a wee bit of money from it was given at least some consideration. A direct route north to Edmonton or northeast to Saskatoon, or maybe even a line to each (reports, variously, make mention of all these possibilities) was explored. Regardless, there’s was lots of untapped markets in those directions, so the railway took notice.

A line looked quite feasible. Just run the new steel off the tail end the Empress wye (a Y-shaped arrangement of tracks where locomotives were turned around) and away you go. Easy as pie here on the flat prairies. But there was one problem, one major problem, one costly problem, standing in the way was the Red Deer River right at the very start. It was wide and crossing it would have cost a fortune.

Sizing up the situation, the railway quickly deemed it not worth the effort and and with that the plan was shelved and soon forgotten. Was it ever seriously considered? From what we found, they at best only “toyed” with the idea. From the start, it seems everyone knew soon on, that bridge work was a deal breaker. Today, few people know of these plans, even long time residents of Empress.

The railway line though Empress was fully abandoned in the 1990s. The old roadbed is mostly intact including the old wye tracks (we found some steam locomotive “clinker” – remains of burned coal – scattered all over the place here). The tail track extends right down to the river on a high embankment (cut in two by a farmer’s access road). From here, one can clearly see just how challenging the crossing would have been. There’s a channel, a broad island and then the main part of the river (view blocked in our photo by that island) then finally a wide expanse of valley to cross. The whole thing, bridges and fill approaches, would have easily been a kilometre or two in length. Yikes, I could see why they balked.

Interestingly, while Empress is in Alberta, the turning wye, save for the very end of the tail track, is actually in Saskatchewan. The provincial border, aka the 4th Meridian, runs just east of the town site. A sign by the old rail bed marks the line.

Empress is home to nicely restored train station. It can be see off in the distance in one photo. This building has appeared in a few BIGDoer.com reports over the years. We even saw it before it was fixed up, not long after the last train visited.

Some unfinished railway lines…
Grand Trunk Pacific Calgary.
Unfinished Railway Line Calgary.
Unfinished Canadian Northern Railway line Fort MacLeod.

If you wish more information on what you’ve seen here, by all means contact us!

Date: July, 2016.
Location: Empress, AB.
Article references and thanks: Larry Buchan, Charles Bohi, Leslie Kozma, CPR Archives.
This abandoned railway line can be walked

  • _________________________

    BIGDoer.com: Doing it Different!



    Something to say in private? Click here to: Reach Us!
    NEWS!First TimersFAQMeet the Team
    BIGDoer.com on Facebook

    If you liked this post, please tip your server…



    Or

    © 2012-2024 Chris Doering, Johanna (Connie) Biggart & the BIGDoer.com Society. 🍁🎀

Unfinished Railway Empress AB

Tail end of the “wye” – there were plans to extend the line north – cut is from later.

Unfinished Railway Line

Old ties.

Red Deer River Empress AB

The Red Deer River, a huge obstacle – most of it is out of sight behind that island.

Empress AB Unfinished Railway

At the end of the roadbed, looking back – lots of fill here.

Empress AB Railway Line

Looking north where two legs of the wye meet – tail track embankment in back.,

Steam Locomotive Clinker

Steam locomotive clinker found while exploring.

Empress Alberta/Saskatchewan Sign

The Alberta/Saskatchewan border (4th Meridian) – restored Empress Station in back.

Empress AB Railway

General layout of the area.

18 responses

  1. Connie Biggart says:

    Such dedication to history!

  2. Lyle Corrigan says:

    We called these clinkers. I had to remove these from are stove when we still burnt coal every once in awhile!

  3. Steve McLean says:

    I think I have a chunk of that !!
    Wasn’t sure what it was. 😃

    • Now you know! On some old railway lines it’s everywhere. Remember the last steamers were retired some sixty years ago, so it’s something that speaks of another time.

  4. Ron Bore says:

    Thanks for the Railroad history.

  5. Romany Stew says:

    Always a good read , the pictures also tell a good story.

  6. Jo Tennant says:

    Amazing information – thank you

  7. John says:

    Thanks for this. My wife’s grandfather farmed in Patricia and I out there photographing and was trying to understand the history of the right-of-way and why Bassano had such a large (now abandoned) rail yard.

    Any idea when the grain elevators where taken down?

    I’ll include a link to your site when I publish my article

    • You are welcome John. At one time that railyard was some busy, given all the branch lines in the area. But all things must pass. The last of the elevators in that general area were torn down by the mid to late 1990s for the most part. Glad we could be of help. Do message us when the piece is published. We so love write ups of that nature.

  8. Matt Tait says:

    I know they just used whatever fill was on hand due to the economics of construction, but that cross section shows why the sections of rail could wash out so easily in a heavy rainfall. just a random note.

  9. Very cool! Was fun exploring in the area with you guys. We will have to tackle the west end of the bridge at some point!

You cannot copy content of this page

Please log-in to continue...
This allows unrestricted access to every post @BIGDoer.com, popups are eliminated,
commenting is on and the "contact us" page is enabled.

Esc to close this box.

Lost Password?

Or...

Your social site may send you a routine notice of login.

Or signup, here: Subscriber Register
___
BIGDoer.com: Serving up POP HISTORY & other McFun!…(Mmmm, yummy bite-sized pieces.)
One million plus words & tens of thousands of photos!