Grand Trunk Pacific Calgary

The berms seen in the photos below are some of the last remnants of the former Grand Trunk Pacific Railway line that once lead into downtown Calgary. Built in the early 1910s, the stretch of track came in from Northern Alberta (near Edmonton), entering the city in the east, before bending back and paralleling the Bow River to reach the core. It terminated at what is the present day site of Fort Calgary (it was a fort, a railway yard and is a fort again).

Last used in the 1960s, or thereabouts (records are sketchy) most of the former line has been built upon and any traces obliterated. Where there were tracks, is now housing, pathways, green spaces and other development. Still, every now and then, bits can be found, including what we’ve shown you here. One section of roadbed sits next to a baseball field, the other in behind a condo complex. Neither looks like much, unless you know, then it’s clear and recognizable.

The Grand Trunk Pacific was folded into Canadian National Railways in the early 1920s. The current end of what was this same line ends perhaps a click or so east of the sections we found.

Another stretch of abandoned railway roadbed in Calgary…
Unfinished Railway Line Calgary.

Short Subjects: reports that for any number of reasons are brief in nature. They might be updates to older articles, previews of posts planned or 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: April, 2016.
Location: Calgary, AB.

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Grand Trunk Pacific Calgary

The roadbed of the former Grand Trunk Pacific line into downtown Calgary.

Calgary Grand Trunk Pacific

Another section, hard to see under all that grass.

6 responses

  1. Chuck Hamil says:

    The GTP downtown Calgary yard was pulled up around 1967 as I recall. I remember walking across the railway bridge where the Elbow met the Bow, when I lived in Inglewood as a child. It remained in place for a couple years after.

    • Interesting! I have not found exact records but this seems to corroborate what little data I found. Hard to imagine a train yard at Fort Calgary!

      • Massey Jones. says:

        The Calgary Public Library has oblique aerial photos of the yard when it was in use. I saw them online. as for the path which the GTP took, go to Google Earth and start at the truncated track by the end of 9 Ave SE and follow at 17 Ave x 17 a St SE. A bit there connected to the present CP track of the Red Deer Sub.
        Cross the track and look carefully and you’ll see the curve where the GTP used to run.
        New Street ended at the GTP track and you took a photo along 13 St.

        The track crossed at the south end of the 10 St SE bridge (now 12 St) and we see strips of disturbed ground, although the flood altered some features. In some spots, the bike path was constructed and of course, some housing over the years, but a little imagination and some old maps (c. 1980) will show a lot. I went to City Hall back in the mild-80s and purchased a book with vertical photos at 1:4000, showing what is was like before a lot of today’s road and home construction, particularly the portion just south of the CP bridge over the Bow.

        • Thank for adding to the story. We’ve followed the old line and while mostly gone, every now and then there’s a recognizable trace of what was. How the area has changed.

  2. Lindsey Fowler says:

    I live right across the road and never knew this. Great website!

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