The first car to cross the Canadian Rockies

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Back in the early 1900s, there were very few roads once you left a town or city. The best you could hope for were some half-decent wagon trails and dry weather. In rugged BC in 1904 there were no roads through the interior or across the Rockies. The CPR had even destroyed parts of the very good Cariboo Road in 1882, a true highway from the coast to the interior, to lay tracks. And wouldn’t you know they got all the freight business to the interior?

Even so, back in the day, there were people who had a desire to drive great distances and see as much of the world as possible. Charles Glidden of Lowell, Massachusetts was one of those. His choice of car was the British built Napier, one of the finest cars in the world at the time. This prominent (and rich) American motoring enthusiast who had made many other long-distance tours wasn’t going to let the lack of roads hold him back.

Mr Glidden approached the Canadian Pacific Railroad to allow him to use the rail line crossing the Rockies, through the province and arriving in Vancouver. His idea was to put flanged wheels on the Napier and actually run it on the rails. The CPR agreed on the condition that the car is upgraded to locomotive standards and be dispatched as a scheduled train with a CPR conductor. The extra equipment on the car included warning torpedoes (flares?) a horn, red flags and signals.

The CPR rail lines were in fine condition so the trip was very smooth for Mr Glidden, his wife and a friend from London, England a Mr Charles Thomas. The ride was so smooth that Mr Glidden at one time had the twenty-four horsepower Napier opened up and they hit close to sixty miles per hour. However, their average speed for just over eighteen hundred miles was about thirty miles per hour and the whole trip took twelve days.

In the picture above is the Napier arriving at the foot of Howe Street In Vancouver. Mr and Mrs Glidden are upfront. In the back seat are the CPR conductor in his conductor uniform with hat and Mr Thomas from London. They look quite relaxed and pleased after their long journey.

After this trip railroad companies did not allow private vehicles on their tracks but they did take note of the idea and in 1905 the CPR had one on the rails in Alberta for inspection purposes. Cars on the rails became a bit of railroad tradition in this country. A 1930 Rolls Royce was in use in the late thirties on Vancouver Island for a logging company owner. One of the most interesting cars to be used on the rails was a 1939 McLaughlin Buick Limited Imperial Touring Z Sedan. The CPR fitted it with heavier leaf springs, air brakes, plus a locomotive horn and bell. But the most incredible bit of equipment was its own turntable to turn it around. This was under the car at its balance point and with a special manually operated jack could raise the 8,400lb car off the tracks. Then one man could push the car around as if it was on a pivot and put it down on the tracks.

Words by Steve Diggins. Photograph courtesy BC Archive.

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