Alpine tracks
RIDING HIGH ON THE CANADIAN PACIFIC WITH RON HILL
In 1966, Ron Hill expanded his vacations from his Denver home, hightailing it through Montana to cruise steep-tarmacked grades and glacier-carved valleys to photograph the Canadian Pacific Railway. Seeing the Great Northern passing by big granite crags of the Lower Rocky Mountains earlier in the 1960s pushed Ron — and his red Porsche — further north to the elevations of British Columbia and Alberta.
After countless long legs behind the wheel, he recalls how “Canadians do a better job with roads than we do.” The border crossing back then? A simple wave-through by the Mounties.
Ron took nearly 20 trips to chase Canadian Pacific trains between 1966 and 2017 in these western provinces. His longest continuous stint took place annually in August between 1969 and 1981. After meeting John Garden (then a barely-30-something CP locomotive engineer based in Revelstoke), Ron added a winter February excursion in the late 1970s.
Although Ron was already frequenting spots along the Laggan and Mountain Subdivisions made famous by CP Special Photographer Nicholas Morant, he credits Garden for introducing him to new vantage points between Lake Louise and Glacier like none other than “Morant’s Curve.” No matter what year or season, the entire region never failed to impress — or entice! Ron noted how “every trip was a highlight, the mountain scenery spectacular, and there were always trains.”
What initially made Ron’s summer trips both possible and exciting (other than his fast car!) were precisely the number of accessible trackside spots. With the opening of the Trans-Canada Highway in 1962, a trunk road that often parallels the rails, Ron found photographic opportunities at every turn, pass, bridge, and tunnel.
Writing in 1975 about his time spent in British Columbia for Pacific Rail News, he specifically noted that “a scenic viewpoint has been built along the highway overlooking the lower spiral tunnel.” Ron had first photographed from this very viewpoint just four years after the highway opened, capturing The Canadian pulled by first-generation diesels.
This “railroad roadside photography,” as Ron jokingly refers to it, granted him access to elevated and train-level views. It also allowed him to replicate a picture-making strategy he honed in the Lower 48: returning to locations within a single jaunt and over the years to rephotograph remarkable landscapes.
Remarkable they are! The visual punch of seeing Canadian Pacific trains snake through abundant natural spaces make Ron’s images impactful and alluring.
MORE BIG MOUNTAIN RAILROAD PHOTOGRAPHY
In 2019, Ron donated his 60 years of rail images to the Center for Railroad Photography & Art in Madison, Wis. His impressive collection includes a wonderful series on Canadian railroads with many devoted to the Canadian Pacific Railway, focusing on the alpine regions between Calgary and Vancouver.
As the archivist charged with processing the collection, I humbly admit Ron’s camera work marked my first foray into North American railroad photography. I’ve come to deeply admire his compositions. They combine a sincere focus and attention to trains in a railroading landscape with evident awe and veneration for the natural beauty of the surrounding environment. (Why else would he write an article titled, “CP Rail in Beautiful British Columbia?”)
Shot mostly as color slides but also with some black-andwhite and color negative film, Ron’s photography has what Jeff Brouws – author and CRP&A board member – has identified as a “signature style.” Beginning in the early 1960s between Colorado’s Front Range and Mount Elbert, Ron’s style included “spectacular views of majestic mountain ranges encircling milewide valleys with diminutive trains running through them.”
In Canada, however, the valleys are less wide than they are long — with views aimed up Yoho Valley, down Kicking Horse Canyon, and across glacial lakes. Everywhere Ron aimed his Leica, Hasselblad, and very-little-used Nikon, the grand Rockies imposed themselves on his images.