AN EXCERPT FROM THIS DOCUMENTARY featuring railroad wife Zelma Vader....
"All through my childhood I was surrounded by the very real fact of danger.  Miners being carried out of cave-ins and explosions, tree fallers returning maimed from the forest, truckers careening off narrow, poorly built alpine roads, and fishermen and log-rafters disappearing into the foggy ocean waters.  If anything, railroading seemed to be pretty tame, that is it did, until I realized that I had married a Kettle Valley Railroad man.

Over its three hundred miles the Kettle Valley was a continuing series of danger points.  Everything about the railroad was superlative, it was the highest, longest, narrowest, steepest, snowiest, wettest, fastest, and foggiest.  We lived in railroad towns that were sometimes a group of small buildings hanging for dear life onto a rocky ledge.  At times, our husbands were away for several days, and in winter that was pretty stressful.

Imagine yourself walking the length of a freight train, on the catwalk on top of the cars.  The train is travelling at more than thirty miles an hour, downhill, it's snowing heavily, and temperatures are hovering at minus fifteen, you tend to be in a crouch because, with poor visibility, you're not quite sure how far you are from the next tunnel.  You really had to love railroading to be a railroader."

Not another railroad like it.  It has become world famous for its achievements and marvels.  It is now part of the trans Canada Trail and deserves your personal visit.

  
KETTLE AND CABOOSE - ISBN 0-9698645-6-6
Full colour.  58 minutes.  DVD or VIDEO (NTSC or PAL)