BC
Archives # E-04367
This is the once-famous Gibbs Creek Trestle,
located as noted at the 13.7 milepost from the Lillooet division point,
and roughly equivalent to 14 Mile House on the Cariboo Road, from the roadside
of which the picture on the left was taken. The trestle was among
the largest of its kind in the world but was replaced by an earthfill dike
in the 1950s (?). The view across the vale of Gibbs Creek towards
Fountain (at right) is from roadside a few yards further up the Cariboo
Road from this point, looking across the creek valley that the trestle bridges,
the trestle itself being a couple of miles up to the left of this view.
The cloud of steam in the view is a PGE locomotive in the area of the tunnel
by 12 Mile House; the line across the mountainside below the cloud of smoke
(just above the trees) is the Cariboo Road, on the same route as today's
Highway 12.
|
BC
Archives # I-22306 |
BC
Archives # E-00373 |
This uphill view
of the trestle displays its signature curve, which was apparently unique
for a trestle of its length and height. The view from the crest of
the trestle looked down the Gibbs Creek canyon almost to the Fraser's banks,
some two thousand feet below. The sand bluff in the background, on
the other side of the Fraser, is a 3500' bluff in the southeastern flank of
the final buttress of the Camelsfoot Range. |
| The trestle itself is obviously quite high
above the bottom of the creek gully of Gibbs Creek, but the following pictures
give a better idea by exactly how much, and at what risk. |
|
BC
Archives # E-04374 |
BC
Archives # F-06064 |
| The Gibbs Creek trestle was the
scene of a famous rail disaster of the 1930s (?). If you look closely
next to the telephone pole in the centre of the picture, you'll realize
that at what first seems to be a bit of hillside is actually the fallen locomotive
shown at right. Reference to the picture at the top of this section
in the context of the size of the locomotive will show the titanic scale
of the trestle, and the much higher heights this unfortunate locomotive
may have fallen from a few yards further along. I'll add details of
the history of the crash later on as I find them out. According to
the different BC Archives notes for at least one of these pictures, the Gibbs
Creek trestle is described by the name Deep Creek but as far as I know that's
somewhere farther up in the Cariboo; one credit places the date of the crash
as March 1932 but other credits say 1920s; anyone having any background or
stories on this incident is welcome to email
me (replace "_at_" in address with @ symbol). |
