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November 2001 West Vancouver Historical Society Page 7 TRAIN WRECK AT FISHERMANS COVEI V\ MIRACLE NOBODY KILLED" By: Peter Hall In our last issue Peter told us about the first serious train wreck in West Vancouver. Now he tells us of the second serious wreck which took place at Fishermans Cove in 1972 and which resulted in great changes being made to the track - changes which are still in place today. Shortly after 6:00 a.m. on Saturday, February 19th, 1972, Fishermans Cove residents Wayne and Donna Pretty and tlieir five-week old baby miraculously escaped injury as tliree boxcars full of lumber tumbled down the cliff from the track above and smashed half their home to bits. The living room, kitchen and batlu^oom of their house at 5897 Marine Drive were demolished. The passing boxcars also destroyed the Pretty's driveway and their two cars. The Pretty's were asleep at the time in the bedroom wing which escaped unscathed. The Weill house at 5873 Marine, unoccupied at the time, was clipped by another boxcar enroute to Marine Drive. High above Marine, the track of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway (since renamed the British Columbia Railway) snaked along the cliff side. A seventy-tliree car Vancouver-bound freight train pulled by three locomotives had suffered a derailment. One engine and twenty-four cars had jumped the tracks, the tliree cars tliat hit tJie Pretty house continued on down and landed on Marine Drive. One had hit the Weill home and six more were scattered down the cliff. The rest of the cars and the one derailed engine remained on or close to the track. "... One engine and twenty-four cars had jumped the tracks." In his book "British Colunbia Railway - From PGE to BC Rail" author J.F. Garden writes that the derailment".... tore up 10(X) feet of track ... on a 12 degree curve above Fisherman's cove (sic). Even though this was good track with 100 lb. rail, excess lateral forces on the high rail of the tight curve caused the wreck." The forces Mr. Garden refers to caused the rail to turn over on its side as the third locomotive passed over it. The Pacific Great Eastern Railway had been built tlirough West Vancouver in 1914 and 1915. It was built to tlie then prevailing railway standards to accommodate the shorter trains and lighter engines which were dien in use. Those standards allowed sharper curves than do modern mainline track layouts. During the period 1914 to 1928, when the PGE operated trains in West Van the line ended at Horseshoe Bay, and the trains consisted almost exclusively of self-propelled gas-engined passenger cars running singly, and the track alignment was quite suitable for this light equipment. When the PGE was extended along Howe Sound enroute to a connection with its mainline at Squamish in 1956, the old 1914/ 1915 grade was utilized. Indeed to have strayed off it would have precipitated an uproar from those home owners whose gardens or driveways would have necessarily been expropriated for a better alignment. "... They had assumed............that that was the last they would see see and hear of the noisy monsters." The stretch along which the derailment took place was basically a narrow ledge, with the track only four feet from a precipice. Furthermore, the aforementioned sharp curve lay immediately to the west of the wreck. West Vancouverites had really not been happy to have the railway reactivated. They had assumed, when the tracks were torn up in 1928, that that was the last they would see and hear of the noisy monsters. The wreck, the near disaster to the Pretty family, the damage to another house, and the danger to traffic on Marine Drive resulted in a public outcry. What had been a nuisance had become a threat to life and limb. The railway acted promptly. They relocated tlie line to eliminate the 12 degree curve and the narrow ledge on which the track sat above Fishermans Cove and along to Horseshoe Bay. A 4,568 foot tunnel was drilled through the toe of Black Mountain bypassing the section where the derailment occurred. The new line through the tunnel was opened in August 1973 only 19 months after the Pretty's had their rude awakening. Tracks and ties were removed from the old grade and it became the popular Seaview Walk, running from Cranley Drive at Nelson Creek to Gleneagles Golf Course. •From near disaster arose this popular public amenity.