The Influence of the Railways on the Waskasoo Area
 
When the Canadian Pacific Railway arrived in Calgary in 1883, the Calgary and Edmonton Trail gained major significance as the north-south route from Calgary to Edmonton and it wasn't long before the value of a railway joining Alberta's two major population centers became obvious.
 
In 1890, the first half of the Calgary and Edmonton Railway was built. It was leased and later sold to the Canadian Pacific Railway. The route followed the general C & E Trail corridor but the railway decided on its own route to reduce the grade of the railway or to accommodate preferred locations for communities.
 
Around Springbook, the railway was build a couple of miles east of the C & E Trail toward a crossing of the Red Deer River 7 km east of the settlement at Red Deer Crossing, where Fort Normandeau now stands. Rev. Leonard Gaetz, who owned a considerable amount of land where central Red Deer now stands, gave the new railway a good chunk of that land to build the railway there, much to the chagrin of the settlers at the Crossing. During that winter, a bridge was built crossing the Red Deer River and the line continued to Edmonton the following year. That bridge is now part of the Waskasoo Park trail system.
 
Passenger service started in 1891 and continued until 1985. The Red Deer downtown yards were relocated to the northwest of the city in 1989.
 
Red Deer became a booming community in the early part of the twentieth century. In 1901, the Alberta Central Railway was chartered with Red Deer as its headquarters. It was to have run southeast to Pine Lake, then northeast to Coal Banks, near Nevis, and then to connect with the main CP line somewhere farther east. To the west, it was to go to the Brazeau coal fields near Nordegg and there were dreams of it extending through Howse Pass to the west coast.
 
In 1910, Sir Wilfred Laurier came to Red Deer to drive the 'first spike' but construction didn't start until 1911. The station was located near the present Mountview Fire Hall, went west across Kin Canyon on a wooden trestle and crossed the Canadian Pacific and Waskasoo Creek, where today a lonely bridge support stands along Taylor Drive near what was called Forth junction. It headed west through what is now Westpark, then southwest crossing the Red Deer River just north-east of Springbrook where a steel trestle, one of the longest in Alberta, was built at Mintlaw.
 
Unfortunately, the company went bankrupt and was leased to the Canadian Pacific Railway which built the line through Sylvan Lake and as far as Rocky Mountain House by 1914, but no further. A competing line, the Canadian Northern Railway, reached Rocky first but there were apparently fights that occurred between the construction crews along the way. The eastward right of way was levelled to north of Pine Lake but tracks were never laid.
 
As the City of Red Deer expanded westward, the junction was moved a few miles south to Tuttle siding and junction, north of McKenzie Road. The line was abandoned and the rails were torn up in 1983. Much of the right of way is still intact.
 
Today, the Canadian Pacific line that runs past Springbrook is the primary north-south freight rail corridor in Alberta.
 

 
C.A.R.T.S.
Central Alberta Regional Trails Society
 
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