Glen's Myra Canyon Adventures.

For those of you that don't know I'm fortunate to live in Kelowna, British Columbia. Not only do I have some of the world's most fantastic scenery and climate, Located just an hour's drive from my house is the former Canadian Pacific Railway's Kettle valley line. The line near Kelowna was abandoned in the seventies but the roadbed was preserved as a hiking trail.

The section that I frequent with my truck and mountain bike is called Myra canyon. it is a 12 KM section through some of the most rugged country to have a standard gauge railway built. In the 12 KM section between Ruth and Myra stations there are 18 trestles (16 wooden and 2 large steel structures) and two tunnels. In 2003 a major forest fire swept through the canyon, destroying 12 of the wooden trestles and burning the decks of the two steel trestles. Fortunately the Canadian and provincial governments stepped in and provided funding to restore and rebuild the lost structures with almost exact replicas. For a more complete look at the area you can visit the restoration societies website at: www.myratrestles.com

Earlier this year I was doing some hiking and got the opportunity to talk to someone who worked on the restoration. He mentioned to me that an old rail car had been found in the canyon, just below trestle #7. With my curiosity peaked I was determined to find it. I was lucky, in a way that the fires did happen, since all the foliage had been burned away from the wreck so it can be seen from the roadbed

The car wreck is located about 5 KM from the ruth station. To get there you have to leave your car at Ruth and hike or cycle in. (it's a provincial park with no motorized vehicles allowed on the hiking trails) I took these pictures on two separate trips, one to find the wreck from the roadbed and the other to climb down and investigate the wreck.

As you can see the car is quite a ways down from the trestle top. and mostly just the steel frame can be seen. I was very excited to find the car on the first trip and made plans to return to climb down to see what was left of it, possible to get and idea of what kind of car it was and it's approximate age.

The next trip I started out fairly early in the day since the best light is in the morning. I cycled out to trestle #7 and prceeded to climb down.  As a precaution I worn a good pair of hiking boots and a set of leather gloves.

A word of warning here. The climb is pretty steep along a rock fall. There are dangers of loose and sharp rock and possible slippage if you are not careful. Going with a buddy is a good idea .As well this is in a provincial park, please remember to tread lightly over any artifacts or vegitation.

The climb down took a little over half an hour, moving carefully or course. The Leather gloves came in handy since the rocks are quite sharp and jagged.

Halfway down the rock fall I started to come across smaller parts of the wreckage. These gave me the clues I needed to identify the type of car it was.

This door hinge was obviously from a referigerator car and the chared piece of wood it was attached to meant the superstructure was wooden. This certainly seems like an old (turn of the century) car.

Lying nearby was the charcol heater. For those that don't know reefers had small heaters to keep their contents from freezing in the winter, but still kept them cool.

When I got to the main wreck site this is what I found:

The frame is resting upright, lying diagonally down the slope. The coupler is at the bottom of the picture with the brake gear to the right. The old 'stem-winder' brake shaft and the end ladder are bent to the floor. I suspect that the car tumbled several times on it way down, crushing the wood superstructure. I also believe that any wood left was burned up in the 2003 fires.

 My next plan was to circle the frame to get an overall view of it's state. This was the most dangerous part of the trek , due to the dense brush and grass covering the ground and making the going consideralbly more slippery.

This is looking up the slope. Note the brush that has grown up around the car. All of this was burned away in 2003. In a few more years the wreck could be totally obsured again. The trees around the wreck are all chared. Also note the trestle I climbed down to get to this spot.

This is from upslope again. There was a fair amount or burned timber lying around, perhaps some from the car.

After circling the car I wanted to take some detail pictures, since I didn't know when I was going to be back down there.

The car is propped up on some rocks on its one end, suspending it above the ground. This gave me the excellent opprtunity to photogragh the underside. On the right is the coupler with the large gear beside it being the ratcheting mechanism for the handbrake.

Looking behind I found the truck bolster and brake rods. The frame is the old style 'fishbelly' frame with the main beam running between the two bolsters.

This is the top of the frame, looking at the brake gear. The frame protected them fairly well in the crash so it all looks intact.

About fifty feet from the frame I found one of the trucks. It's an old archbar truck that went out of service in the early fifties (or earlier) I was surprised to find one, thinking that they would have been salvaged but I guess since the car itself wasn't the railway didn't bother with anything else.

 Before I climbed back up to the roadbed I took a few pictures of the trestles from the wreck site. This is the trestle I took the first picture in the article from. This shot shows how far I had to climb down to the wreck. 

After finished my survey of the car I climbed back up to the roadbed, surprising some tourists when I re-appeared. I encourage anyone who has the chance to take a day and explore the Myra Canyon themselves.

MODELLING NOTES

Modeling a wreck scene is something almost every model railroader thinks about doing. Modelling this scene would have to require some degree of compresion since placing a wrecked car 400 feet below a model trestle would be impractical, unless you have ceiling to floor scenery. The loose rocks below the trestle are something that isn't modelled very often. Most modellers are more intrested in casting rock faces but don't think of where the rock from the initial construction of the line went.

Modelling the wreck itself is a challenge. The frame has to be found or scratchbuilt. If I was to build it I would use either an Athearn or Central valley boxcar frame since they are separate from the floor. Adding some of the details that I pointed out and twisting the frame slightly would definetly help. I would recomend not using an open flame to bend the frame or other panels drastically, instead use boiling water to soften the plastic (wear gloves). The frame has a sort of two-tone rust on it one darker and one lighter. I  would spray the entire frame in a red-brown color and then use floquil rust, either as an overspray from an airbrush or using a drybrushing techinque. Placing the frame on the rocks and not trying to bury it. place green grass and foilage around and even growing up through the rusting frame. Add a rusted set of trucks and some other debris to round out the scene. You can even add some greyed wood panels to show the collapsed superstructure.

Glen Dec 24, 2008

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