Train Wreck turns 70!Train Wreck turns 70!
Combine a speeding train going more than twice the speed limit with a heavy load of logs and a narrow section of track and one might say you have a recipe for disaster. Seventy years ago on Aug. 11, 1956, that’s exactly what happened on a portion of rail near Function Junction.
Today, the Train Wreck is one of Whistler’s most popular and family-friendly attractions: a site accessed by a one-kilometre-long trail through forest and over a Cheakamus River suspension bridge, where one happens upon a scattering of derelict, rusting railway cars all covered in bright and ever-changing graffiti. A suite of ruin, also very much alive!
The story of what actually happened that fateful day seems to have remained quite hush-hush for some time. The reasons for this can only be speculated: was it because the Pacific Great Eastern Railway (PGE) tried to deflect attention from the matter? This is neither confirmed nor dismissed—but what we do know now, from first- and second-hand accounts, is that not only was the PGE responsible for the accident, the company also could not clean it up itself.
In 2013, the Whistler Museum’s executive director Sarah Drewery published a piece in the Whistler Question about the “mysterious” Train Wreck. The piece served as a public query and resulted in two members of the Valleau family—who ran a large logging operation based out of Mons—reaching out to the museum and sharing what they knew.
In honour of the anniversary, we share an excerpt from Drewery’s article “Train Wreck Mystery Revealed,” the piece we subsequently published in 2014 about the conversation had with the two Valleaus. Rick Valleau remembered his father talking about the wreck. Rick’s uncle Howard actually remembered the incident first-hand.
“The crash occurred in 1956 shortly after the Valleau family had moved to the area. The wreck happened on an area of track constricted by rock cuts, and there were three boxcars loaded with lumber jammed in there, blocking the line. The PGE Railway’s equipment couldn’t budge them so the company approached the Valleau family,” Drewery wrote.
“The Valleaus took their logging machinery (a couple of D8 Cats) down to the site, put a hitch (luff) on with two moving blocks to the boxcar and pried them out. They then dragged the cars up the track and into the forest, where they lie today. To all those who were confused by the fact that there is no damage to the trees around the wreck, this is because the train did not come off the rails at this point, but the boxcars were moved there after the fact.
“The train had been assembled in Lillooet by John Millar, a conductor for the PGE. Millar told the story to Howard Valleau, as follows: The train had four engines. There was a mistake made on the tonnage of the train, making it too heavy, and they had to split the train to get up the grade to Parkhurst (on Green Lake). This put them behind schedule, and they tried to make up time by travelling a little faster than usual. The speed limit on that section of rail was only 15 m.p.h. (24 km/h). The fourth engine turned a rail, causing the train wreck. They checked the tape in the engine, which told how fast they were going—the crew had thought the speed was 15 m.p.h., but in fact it was 35 m.p.h. (56 km/h).
“Millar told Howard Valleau that had they known the actual speed, they would have taken the tapes out. The engineer and crew were subsequently fired after the investigation into the wreck.”
It just so happens that the week of the Train Wreck’s 70th anniversary also coincides with the Whistler Museum’s 30th annual Building with Lego Bricks Competition! To celebrate both, this year’s competition theme is “Build Your Best Rescue Machine.”
On Sunday, Aug. 16, the museum invites children ages three to 12 to register for the exciting event, held in Florence Petersen Park: blending imagination, colour and innovation! There will be prizes and activities. For more info click here.