Rocky Mountain Railroad | Episode 1: Avalanche | FD Real Show

in the heart of the rockies this elite crew working on the railway is very dangerous every rule that's been written has been written in blood battles massive avalanches oh man that thing is not small and monster icicles it's mother nature you're dealing with you just don't know what she's gonna do to keep a crucial supply line running through the mountains the canadian pacific railway this extreme mountain passage is a critical lifeline to get fuel food and freight from coast to coast during the winter this train is the train that must not stop heaven forbid if it does if the trains can't rule through this icy hell in the mountains it's always a battle the country will grind to a halt in the mighty rocky mountains canada's most extreme stretch of railroad clings to the edge of these ice encrusted rocks the canadian pacific railway was built more than 135 years ago and snakes 5 000 kilometers across canada it's the steel backbone that ties the country together [Music] the most challenging stretch of the route runs through these mountains always fun this time here where snow and ice can shut down the entire line [Music] it's very difficult to keep trains running you have mother nature the seasons mechanical defects there's always something that's up against us being able to keep the trains moving working out here is a challenge you have steep grades tight corners and lots of snow it's all about being comfortable and knowing your area overnight a huge snowstorm buried large sections of track making this mountain route nearly impassable right now we had a lot of freezing temperatures and then it snowed now there's a huge train delay we'll mobilize the snowplow crew so that operations can uh continue on we've had quite a bit of fresh snow on the selkirk mountains our plow equipment is all set up ready to do battle last night's storm also left behind a massive buildup of snow on the mountain slopes that's our avalanche advisory now we know what our conditions are today they're considerable almost as high as we get to safely run trains and safely work there's a really large snowpack up in the top of these mountains right now that has the potential to release naturally in the next coming few days bury the tracks close the railway for you know 24 to 48 hours while they clean it up trains will be backed up across the province and in turn a lot of financial loss the storm could not have hit at a worse time 480 kilometers west of the rockies in the port of vancouver the biggest cargo ship to ever dock on canada's west coast is delivering more than 13 000 containers for canadian pacific to haul east through the cloud rockies [Music] these containers are loaded with crucial supplies from food to clothes cell phones to computers essential items for people from coast to coast dock workers race to stack the containers onto the train so they can send it on its way [Music] we got a clear signal in the lead locomotive conductor jim smith an engineer jordy hunter who's been working on the line for 20 years [Music] cp's hottest train is this train train 100 and they'll park the waters for us this train is the hot train we have 26 uh loads on this train no empties so we got a fully stock train [Music] it's got all the uh time sensitive freight that just has to be there it's a scheduled train and it has to be in toronto at a specific time they don't want to delay it whatsoever so you get on and you're gone [Music] the average train length is 8 400 feet but then potentially these trains could get as long as 13 000 feet that's over two miles of train and i are in charge of multi millions of dollars worth of equipment here this locomotive is worth almost three million dollars we have three of these on this train and then you've got the container which is all the merchandise in them it's a huge responsibility but we're up for a [Music] the canadian pacific crew must haul this important load worth around 50 million dollars 3 200 kilometers from vancouver to a rail yard and vaughn near toronto the most treacherous part of the route is through the rocky mountains first they must guide their train through the snow-covered selkirks then the avalanche zone at rogers pass before hitting the ice-encrusted rockies [Music] i got a cold nose it's cold outside every year there's always that one snowstorm and this year we had massive dumps of snow across the mountain the threat of an avalanche is always there especially with the amount of snow we've been getting jordy and jim and train 100 head east smack into the heart of the avalanche zone it's up to avalanche technician derek melinson to assess just how serious the risk of a snow slide is right now we have absolutely humongous mountains that uh have avalanche paths that directly impact the railway and if we aren't able to go control these areas then they have the potential to build up to some of the largest avalanches possible it was here through the selkirk mountains in 1881 that surveyor major albert bowman rogers discovered a passage to connect the railway from east to west it took just a year for construction crews to lay the tracks through this zone but running trains through these mountains came at a cost in 1910 an avalanche claimed the lives of 62 workers it was dangerous then and it's still dangerous now i'm looking for a protected area of snow so i can dig a snowpack profile so i can identify weaknesses within the snowpack that might fail we've had very large avalanches coming down over the railway quite frequently this season so this is my three meter snow probe right away off the bat we have a 200 centimeter snowpack here a two meter deep slab of snow sits directly above the tracks it's not a question of if it will slide but when avalanches can easily take out mature timber and clear out entire forests if large enough you can't get complacent while out here it's mother nature and anything can happen i'm going to start digging some of the snow out and start my test there's been a weakness kind of establish itself right in here here we have some ice formations the snow-covered mountain peaks are nurseries for avalanches [Music] rain and heat from the sun cause freshly fallen snow to melt as temperatures fall below zero at night this water freezes to form a layer of ice as more snow falls these layers of ice become buried and compacted the fresh snow building up on top of the slippery ice can become unstable and when it reaches a critical weight it will slide off triggering an avalanche containing a million tons of snow traveling up to 320 kilometers per hour [Music] i'm going to administer a series of taps slowly giving it more impact and more stress to these weaknesses showing what they're failing today all the way down here i had a failure which is down about 112 centimeters so we have a meter and 12 centimeters that was actually quite easily triggered here we do have potential for large avalanches in this area right now that are possibly going to be triggered on this layer being over a meter deep this would be a very large avalanche that would affect the railway ahead of train 100 there we go 1 000 meters up in rogers pass is quite a scary test result derrick melinson has discovered a massive build-up of snow in the mountains i'm calling the road master out of rebel stoke yeah hey chad derrick here road master chad deschamps is in charge of the 14 strong crew who clear the snow and repair the rails along this critical mountain stretch i like to be a leader get dirty spend time with the crews being part of them sometimes you guys got to do a little bit of manual labor i grew up in a railway family the railways in my blood my grandfather my father uncles and here i am now chad we do have potential for large avalanches in this area right now right right avalanches are a roadmaster's worst nightmare in 2007 near rogers pass an avalanche came down hitting a freight train and damaging tracks fortunately no one was hurt but it took a week to clean up and reopen the line okay i'll let my people know thanks so much jeff yeah fine the avalanche rating was uh considerable yeah snowpack is very very unstable and it can slide at any time if it comes down in an uncontrolled way it can hit trains hit track forces lives can be at stake cars can be buried it's very dangerous it's mother nature you're dealing with you just don't know what she's gonna do [Music] derek and chad must use an effective but potentially dangerous technique to get the snow off the mountains with this kind of instability within the snowpack we're gonna have to go do explosive control we are gonna fly in a helicopter with uh large explosives dropping them out of the helicopter onto avalanche start zones in the area we're coming up to some sheds where they built underneath the avalanche paths i've been in the shed when an avalanche came down we were coming through there on a westbound one winter and all of a sudden it was like a tornado inside the tunnel this whole thing was just full of swirling snow and it was all blowing around inside the tunnel as we exited the tunnel here at the west end we had a look and you can see the slide was just kind of finishing up there trickling down so we went right underneath a moving avalanche which was pretty cool that's just the reality of the job you have to be prepared for those days you also have to be prepared to act at any moment that something might go wrong out here with this train moving at 50 miles an hour it'd probably take about 2500 feet stock about half a mile [Music] with its fleet of 1 000 locomotives and 38 000 rail cars the canadian pacific railway is one of the largest railroad networks in the world but this isn't the only railway that's a crucial lifeline 2500 kilometers east of the rockies the ontario northland railway shuttles critical supplies to off-critters and isolated communities that live on the edge of the arctic the challenges for this rail crew aren't mountains and avalanches but sub-arctic winds that pummel the icy tundra you've got to have a thicker skin than most people because minus 50 degrees at 3 o'clock in the morning isn't all that much fun we're in being northern ontario tough i guess you could say conductor jay falden has worked on the line for 15 years [Music] i could live out here for a little bit but not as long as some of these people do i love the outdoors but i like being able to grocery shop too one more i have to drop off a few guns at any point in time along the track somebody steps out of the bush from a camp or whatever flags us down and we stop and pick them up everything from guns to groceries to moose if somebody can carry it out of the bush we'll put it on the train a lot of times we're the only option for them it's a lifeline growing up always loved trains but never thought of doing this for a job until i was actually doing it every day is a little bit different and doesn't get any more beautiful than this out here part of the line runs from cochrane ontario 312 kilometers north to the remote community of musani just ahead of this train is fraserdale that's where george ross lives his family's winter camp sits just 300 meters from the tracks this is our ross camp we call it russville it's uh i mean my family my brother my sister we all come here whenever we can this was the main camp that started it all about 10 years ago so that's where i used to stay with my family with my six kids this one over here is my my younger sister and her kids this thing here was supposed to be something but it looks like junk i don't really like it so i'm going to rip it down and then i have my stockpile of wood here last year i had close to 40 cords piled up right there a cord is around four meters cubed of well-stacked firewood the name comes from the cord that was once used to measure it out i cut this last weekend a little over a day today george is preparing a load of firewood that he'll send north on the train [Music] it started a few years ago with wood wise i cut a lot of winter back home i had my shack for wood and i just kept cutting more and more wood and people started to see it as a member of the first nations george is allowed to harvest wood from his camp from zero ranches there he's turned it into a thriving business selling the wood to remote northern communities like the island of moose factory i've talked to quite a few elders and uh some of the wood they've been buying was 180 cord and they wouldn't even get their full order and so they would call me just asking what kind of wood can you provide when can you get it [Music] there's no natural gas in moose factory and electricity costs up to fifteen hundred dollars a month to heat a home so residents like bob chilton rely on george's firewood to fuel their wood-burning stoves the coldest i've ever seen it was about minus 42 with a windshield factor about uh 65 to minus 68 and that's cold bob's a retired firefighter battling smoke for 30 years took a toll on his health i'm on oxygen 24 7 for the rest of my life [Music] the railway here is major because it's the only way in to bring freight and if you go shopping and you want to bring your vehicles you lose atvs everything up north the railway brings everything up there if there's no train then there's no access for a fee jay in the ontario northland crew drop off a gondola car at george's camp i've used the gondolas to load wood i just threw it all in there and they do it all just gotta bring it and wait for it that's when i start and i won't stop until i'm done kind of gold if it fills up as much as they can here if i stack this wall the wall i can get 40 45 chords in here [Music] jay and the team will pick up and transport george's gondola packed with firewood 170 kilometers north to musani from there george will need help from his son to load the wood onto sleighs and haul them across the frozen moose river to bob's home i brought up quite a bit of wedding for bob help near the sprinter his health isn't the greatest he's usually the first one on my list to do and all that wood's going to go to bobby [Applause] in the mountains train 100 is closing in on the avalanche zone at rogers pass while derrick prepares the explosives he'll use to detonate a man-made snow slide play with the big bags today chad leads an arsenal of machines into position ready to clear up the snow from the blast that includes this 30-ton loader this 20-ton snow fighter equipped with five-meter long blades to scoop snow away from the tracks and this 80 year old wedge plow designed to smash a path right through massive piles of snow if a slide does come down we'll have the snow plowing position when we get the okay the snowplow will go in and do its work but on route he spots a new threat we got a lot of work in here right now if that came down in front of a locomotive it'd scare them we don't want the icicles to fall on their own those columns probably at least 14 feet high by a diameter of about eight feet over a thousand pounds [Music] that coming off the wall on the middle of the track we don't want that [Music] these giant icicles form as temperatures rise and melting snow seeps through the tunnel's rock ceiling at night when temperatures fall this dripping water starts to freeze [Music] over time the ice builds up layer upon layer forming an icicle that grows bigger and bigger [Music] until eventually this frozen giant becomes a danger to both the tracks and trains one cubic meter of ice weighs nearly a ton [Applause] [Music] my biggest concern is ice columns falling on top of the fellas chad assigns 23 year old rookie jimmy taylor to work under the eyes of experienced foreman ben palace we're gonna take the excavator with our machine operator we're gonna head down the track and hopefully knocked out some ice a former professional magician this is jimmy's second year learning the railroad ropes it's a huge career switch that demands commitment i came into the labor industry from being entertainment and being hospitality so i was terrified coming here not knowing what to expect during my initial orientation i got this right here tattooed on me which is my employee number it's not a job it's a way of life i'll be staying with it for a while today we're in charge of switching the tracks this means the train can't come through the tunnel unless we switch it back to this line the ice is blocking the passage through the clan william tunnel at eagle pass [Music] in the 1910s tunnels were built throughout the mountains to protect trains from avalanches in the winter and mudslides in the spring originally the tunnels were twin track but today's freight cars are so big that only a single train can fit through people used to go in with lining bars and picks and pick it by hand a lot of people they get you know killed and injured in it we rush it there could be an accident there could be believe a chunk of weight the train could potentially go underground right after us it could be an injury that could be god knows what so an eye on the clock basically to make sure we're not going to hurt anybody hey ivan no i'm going to concentrate on knocking that down okay okay i'll push it away from me he's going to push it away okay that sounds good okay ivan it's gonna get the wallet chad's team is battling to clear giant columns of ice from the tunnel at eagle pass potentially derail a train if they hit a train they could break a rails or definitely uh endanger the railway thanks i'll just push this out of the way so i can clear it okay yeah i'll push it away from me there jordy and jim's train 100 carrying its precious cargo to vaughn is closing in on chad's crew we got two hours okay okay let's knock these columns down okay copy that the ice can be pretty dangerous because if it builds up it'll start hitting track units as they go by it'll be essentially like a big boulder on the track all the material that came down from that ice column we just want to get it out of the tunnel obviously and then get it away from the side of the tracks i just don't want to hold up any uh trains right now we just clean up that little pile once we get on the outside of the tunnel there's an ice column right there that's going to come down okay kate are you all set up [Music] nice ice for your whiskey buddy that could have came down by itself and uh worst case scenario hit a locomotive and break a rail we only got about 15 minutes to go here so i got to get ivan moving i'm just going to get ben and the boys this side of us okay okay we can get ben and jimmy down to the switch it's all clear i just got a call there from chad he requires you to shut down what you're doing there now okay sounds good thank you i'll be with the line clear jimmy gets the okay to switch it back into service i'm checking the points to make sure there's nothing obstructing the rails switches are where most derailments i've personally seen happen now you see i learned all this the hard way uh a while back ago i ended up leaving a switch open thankfully a train didn't go through the limits i puked everywhere i thought that was the end point of my career i lost a lot of pay i lost a lot of privileges and especially i lost a lot of respect [Music] jimmy needs to claw back that respect to prove his worth as a railroader i'm watching the wheels for smoke or redness in case a brake might be stuck on i'm watching the knuckles of the train that attaches the cars together i'm watching those to make sure there's no cracks or chips or dents i'm also watching the airlines to make sure none of them are flapping around none of them are leaking at all this stretch of line may be clear but chad's job isn't done he needs to race his snow clearing team to rogers pass to prepare for the snow slide derrick's about to trigger this is our explosives magazine big box boom these are 12.5 kilograms and our big ones are 25 kilograms we're gonna take down some cornices and hopefully some big slopes this ammonium nitrate fuel oil or anfo is a relatively stable blasting agent used in mines and quarries but it needs a big kick to get it going so here we have uh just sticks of typical dynamite which are used to initiate the larger explosives it's a one big chain reaction two three four derrick will drop the explosives from a helicopter to release the loose slabs of snow so they don't slide under the railroad on their own hey chad here i'm all loaded up and uh getting ready to head to the heliport there okay [Music] 2500 kilometers east in ontario i've been loading the ground blood getting ready to send it up north to sneak now i'm waiting to get on a train to deliver all the wood the ontario northland railroad is one of the last flag stop train services in the country i see the train coming i just basically wave my arms and away my gloves in the air they'll see me just so they know that we're getting on [Music] oh i think we got a flag hey does that george up there yeah we got a flag here at george ross's camp anytime on this train you could step out of the bush step out of your vehicle flag the train down and we'll stop and pick you up and anything you happen to have with you do oh yeah that's george and his dog there with the gondola hooked up george just needs to make sure his gear in moussani is ready to go i gotta go prep the skaters they've got to make sure that their fueled and ready belts are on it and working condition basically my nephew borrowed it and i just need to make sure it's all done hopefully i can get the wood over to the island we picked uh george up at uh fraserdale and he's now in mussini now to work he gives again musa knee was established in the 1900s as a fur trading port located near the tip of james bay it's the gateway to extremely remote communities in the arctic [Music] the wetlands here are frozen solid george and his 15 year old son george jr need to use their snowmobiles to transport bob's wood two kilometers across the frozen moose river well i gotta be able to get closer i can to the ice it doesn't look too bad actually right here as long as i can get to here i can go that way all right let's load this lay just notice this morning there's a big crack in the bottom i'm a little nervous about it breaking just need to make it there and back a big crack and a couple holes over here too looks okay i'll find out when i drive it just get at it the cell kirk's jordy and jim's train makes it through the clan william tunnel [Applause] being a locomotive engineer is all i've ever wanted i found my needs in life and there's nothing i'd rather do but drive a train railroading is what it's all about the train's three 4400 horsepower locomotives are powering train 100 right into the avalanche zone at rogers pass get our bombs out and build them up we don't need a full stick of dynamite to initiate these larger explosives so i'm cutting them in half this is just a hole for the fuse to be inserted into let's let's get in the air chad and his team move their machines into place ready to clear up whatever snow the bombs release 31 year old snow fighter derek moore gears up for action in the valley below i've been with cb for nine years now snow fighter for four and a half and this is our ks f-940 snow fighter these are equipped with giant snow wings on a v-plow so we can directionally plow whichever way we need to go also giant wings to deflect snow away from the trap these are our adjustment plates for plow height we'll go around the other side and make sure there's even amounts of shims on both sides checking oil fluids coolant levels hose leaks anything that could impede your day quick visual check on our blower fins we only have two of them and when one goes down it's a far way to calgary to get a new one 100 operators shoulders if anything goes wrong in the field if it has to do with fluids or a bolt coming loose or a pin out that is operator's onus just getting ready to go for avalanche bombing today in avalanche country we have tons to worry about it's just about knowing what to do the protection part avalanche beacons every morning before you get into avalanche territory you do a simple check battery percentage transmit and we're ready to rock the beacons send out a homing signal that helps crews locate workers if they get buried by an avalanche i was hoping for like two feet on the track for the first one two feet that's nothing a six meters six meters oh yeah on the other side of the slide zone a clear signal veteran snow plow operator john popplewell and conductor grant fiocco also move into position i've been in snowplow service since november of 1985. i haven't had a winter like this for quite a few years john's 25 ton wedge plow was custom made to punch through snow drifts up to five meters deep i gotta be on the ball over time no goofing around hit a bridge with the nose down and then you wind up with a set of dentures that is pretty could be very bad we're looking for really fat and loaded slopes here with the large overhangs on top to get the best results we can from all of our explosives some cornices there i think that has the potential to you know pop a slab out there's that one there too unless we see anything else really pop out in the next couple minutes here we'll just uh go for those two oh man that thing is not small i think i can make that go with some big films yeah let's get it okay i have two explosives ready to go here ready once we're in place we'll uh throw some pumps derrick takes aim at this shelf of snow that threatens to launch an avalanche onto the railroad okay putting igniters on two bumps [Music] high above rogers pass derek is set to unleash his controlled i've avalanche talked to chad he's got large snow plows and snow fighters in place just in case we hit the rail with avalanche debris today which i think is quite a possibility now we're just waiting for the boom and hopefully that cornice uh releases and gives us some good results oh there's a good glass coming down see the cloud coming in we've uh taken out a good chunk of that cornice we popped a small slab avalanche here we've got probably a size three avalanche at least here and it's still uh running and picking up mass awesome oh it's cool that might that's the road the next shelf is even bigger we'll go a little further the bigger bags should be about to go any second now there we go awesome great results here we cleaned out the entire slope we got a big powder cloud still traveling down the valley here we've actually got really uh close to the railway tracks here with this result this is obviously one of the things we take the most seriously on the other hand i do have a lot of fun taking out entire mountainsides with large explosives all complete all explosives are detonated so we did get something on the tracks our pile is quite large 40 meters wide by three to four meter deep bombing triggered enough snow to fall onto our track time to work [Music] [Music] george and his son head down to cross the moose river with their damaged sleigh i mean georgie we're gonna be going over the two slow machines he has enough experience uh he pays attention that's why i don't worry about him as much when we go and do things because he knows enough i feel scary going on the ice i like to do this wood get the job done i needed to make sure that when i go and deliver the wood that the ice is safe enough i don't want to take any chances we'll go down here and we'll follow the creek out just gotta go pick up some speed i guess it looks safe it may be safe but it doesn't take much if i go too slow i'll get stuck i don't want to go too fast either [Music] that's what he's supposed to be right there but that's it in the mountains train 100 is bearing down on the avalanche zone and here we come to the big one that's more than three or four meters chad's team gears up to clear the snow slide it measures six meters deep and covers more than 60 meters of track [Music] avalanche snow is unlike any other snow you'll see it falls and tumbles and compacts so hard that it it sometimes can be like digging cement not to mention the trees rocks and whatever else debris comes down with it you can see the top of the excavator on the opposite side working back towards us as clean as we can as quick as we can you gotta have uh bravery in you to get in that loader i suppose because you're basically riding the edge of a mountain if he goes too far over he's going down the bank in the mountains it's always a battle [Music] john's plow crew gets set to clear the snow that has come down on their side let's bust this slide up there benjamin federico over [Music] uh we got the okay all machines are clear so we'll clean the rest of this up we only need what a three feet either side for a train to clear safely looks good backing up back to the clear for trains to run we're gonna park our machines let trains go by [Music] that's why we're here to keep it safe for trains to keep moving [Music] on the moose river in northern ontario george ross's sleigh is on its last legs what's going to survive [Music] he and his 15 year old son george jr are trying to reach the island of moose factory to deliver bob chilton's firewood give me some uh cool weather for another two weeks so i can use another quart of wood bobby's health isn't the greatest and the wood's to help keep warm during this cold front it'll keep him warm and less stress for him [Music] how's it going that was it not bad actually that's good it was actually pretty smooth crossing it was rough it would it would have broke off by now there's always something fix it later [Music] for me doing this type of work is something i've always done i've always enjoyed being outdoors and i'll keep doing it as long as i can it's a little more gratifying knowing that you're bringing with you someone an elder that's good in knowing that he's getting what he needs that's it done connor george thank you very much from bill weldon it's another successful delivery for jay and the onr team bad weather stops planes it doesn't usually stop us the owner played a big role in my life for me i've used the boss cars this year for sure as gondolas which makes it easier and then everybody gets what they want i'm sure the wood is going to help him out and extend his heat source [Music] there they are now with the tracks and rogers pass finally clear jordy and jim guide train 100 through the slide zone at a snail's base with the mountains behind them they put the pedal to the metal eyeball let's go we're on fast track so i'm going to get this baby up to 50. we'll be able to hold that right into town pretty much canadian pacific railway is the essential service of canada the railway pushes the economy of canada forward without the railway we really wouldn't have the economic stability that canada has a 754 clear signal there's a signal almost wrapped up here 15 minutes we'll be climbing off this baby having braved the worst the mountains can throw with them jordy and jim's day is just about over day in the life railroading okay it takes three more days for crews to navigate train 100 the last 2 700 kilometers of its journey the precious delivery of food and freight vital to keeping homes across north america replenished reaches vaughan ontario intact and unscathed canadian pacific's train 100 has done its job it escaped being pierced by giant daggers of ice and crushed by massive slides of snow all because of the dedicated crews who battle brutal weather and deadly terrain to keep this crucial mountain railroad running railroaders are a different breed working all different hours of the night weather it takes certain people to endure all that it's a big family all the railroaders we just want to get the job done and see the trains moving [Music] next time a deadly threat of polar bears they're hunters they're looking for me and treacherous tunnels they're kind of scary you could film a horror movie in them push railway crews to the limit let's get in here as they struggle to haul a record-breaking load of grain through a frozen mountain pass so [Music] you

Channel: FD Real

Views: 574,318

Keywords: Free Documentary, Reality Shows, Reality TV Shows, Show (TV Genre), Documentaries, Factual Entertainment, Factual Television, non-fiction, Best factual series, FD Real, FD Real Show, Rocky Mountain Railorad, Rocky Mountains, Canadian Rockies, Canada, Railroad, Railroad Workers, Railroad Worker, Candian Pacific, canadian pacific railway, railway, trains, Hardest Jobs, Dangerous Jobs, Most Dangerous Jobs, Men at Work, Working Men

Id: LAntb_luSpk

Length: 43min 58sec (2638 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 25 2021