Field Hill is a steep portion of the mainline of the Canadian Pacific Railway located near

Field, British Columbia Field is an unincorporated community of approximately 169 people located in the Kicking Horse River valley of southeastern British Columbia, Canada, within the confines of Yoho National Park. At an elevation of , it is west of Lake Louise along ...

. Field was created solely to accommodate the Canadian Pacific Railway's need for additional locomotives to be added to trains about to tackle both Field Hill, and the

Big Hill The Big Hill on the Canadian Pacific Railway main line in British Columbia, Canada, was the most difficult piece of railway track on the Canadian Pacific Railway's route. It was situated in the rugged Canadian Rockies west of the Continental Div ...

. Here a stone roundhouse with turntable was built at what was first known simply as Third Siding. In December 1884 the CPR renamed it Field after Cyrus W. Field, a

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

businessman who had visited recently on a special train. Difficult grades exist in both directions from Field, east through spiral tunnels to Calgary, Alberta; and west to

Revelstoke, British Columbia Revelstoke () is a city in southeastern British Columbia, Canada, with a census population of 8,275 in 2021. Revelstoke is located east of Vancouver, and west of Calgary, Alberta. The city is situated on the banks of the Columbia River just sout ...

, through Rogers Pass and the

Connaught Tunnel The Connaught Tunnel is in southeastern British Columbia, on the Revelstoke– Donald segment. The tunnel carries the Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) main line under Mount Macdonald in the Selkirk Mountains, replacing the previous routing over R ...

, and where the modern

Mount Macdonald Tunnel The Mount Macdonald Tunnel is in southeastern British Columbia, on the Revelstoke– Donald segment. This single-track tunnel, which carries the Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) main line under Mount Macdonald in the Selkirk Mountains, handles mos ...

was opened in 1989. Following completion of the Spiral Tunnels which eliminated the Big Hill, Field remained an important place as it was still necessary to add helper (

bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because ...

) engines to get trains over the steep 2.2% (116 feet to the mile, or 22 metres to the kilometre) grade of Field Hill. Even bigger locomotives were needed and this time six massive 0-6-6-0 Mallet type (see:

Whyte notation Whyte notation is a classification method for steam locomotives, and some internal combustion locomotives and electric locomotives, by wheel arrangement. It was devised by Frederick Methvan Whyte, and came into use in the early twentieth cen ...

) were built (one in 1909 and five in 1911). Five were compound engines, the last one a simple engine). These were of a unique design with both pairs of cylinders together at the middle of the boiler. The design was not repeated and eventually these engines were rebuilt (1916–17) into

2-10-0 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 2-10-0 represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels on one axle, ten powered and coupled driving wheels on five axles, and no trailing wheels. This arrangement ...

s. More powerful still were the fourteen

2-10-2 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels, ten powered and coupled driving wheels, and two trailing wheels. In the United States of America and elsewhere the is ...

s built (1919–20) for work on the mountain. These were followed in 1929 by the most powerful steam locomotives in the British Empire, twenty 2-10-4 Selkirks. A further ten were built in 1938 and a final six in 1949, the last one being 5935, the last steam locomotive built for the CPR. Diesel-electric locomotives followed, and over the decades bigger and more powerful diesels replaced smaller ones just as was the case with the steam locomotives that had preceded them. Even though the Spiral Tunnels eliminated the Big Hill, the mountains remained and so too did the Field Hill. The Ottertail revision of 1902 and the five-mile () long double track Connaught Tunnel of 1916 were other improvements made to the original line in British Columbia. It was not until the late 20th century when a major new project of including the

reduced the grade to a very manageable average of 0.82%, (maximum 1%) opened in December 1988.

References

* Pierre Berton ''The Last Spike'' McCelland and Stewart Ltd. 1971 Toronto/Montreal 0-7710-1327-2 *W.Kaye Lamb ''History of the Canadian Pacific Railway'' Collier MacMillan Canada Ltd. 1977 *Omer Lavalee ''Van Horne's Road'' Railfare Enterprises Ltd. 1974 Library of Congress Number 73-86285 *Robert D. Turner ''West of the Great Divide'' Sono Nis Press 1987 Victoria BC *Floyd Yates ''Canadian Pacific's Big Hill'' BRMNA Calgary, Alberta 1985 {{Coord, 51.43, -116.40, display=title History of British Columbia Canadian Pacific Railway facilities Rail infrastructure in British Columbia