While Canada was building its own railway across the country to connect the Atlantic to the Pacific in the late 19th century, it came across a major engineering obstacle in the Rocky Mountains of British Colombia. At the Kicking Horse Pass in today’s Yoho National Park, a hill that came to be known simply as “the Big Hill” would become the site of one of the most steeply graded sections of train track ever attempted. After a number of train derailments on the Big Hill and some deaths, a new…
