Tales of the KVR: The Kettle Valley Railway Remembered

Barrie Sanford is well known as the author of the best-selling railway histories McCulloch’s Wonder and Steel Rails & Iron Men.

With his new book, Barrie offers up a whole new take on his favourite subject.

Here are the stories and anecdotes originally told by the men who worked on the Kettle Valley Railway. Drawing largely from notes of interviews conducted with railroaders more than 50 years ago, Barrie presents fresh stories and fresh photographs to give the Kettle Valley Railway its due as a product of a generation of wild west BC adventurers.

Here are the stories of Hurricane Hawkins, the engineer whose trains were always perfectly on time, of Minnie Engen who hailed from Minnesota, of Bunkhouse Bill who guarded sleeping engineers in the little town of Brookmere, BC - and stories of many others. Told as a series of long and short pieces, learn how the term “Hell on Wheels” came to be, how one man managed free drinks without ever breaking his $20 bill, and the real story behind Little Joe’s Lookout on the present day KVR trail.

Tales of the KVR: The Kettle Valley Railway Remembered will become a living social history carefully preserved by one of BC’s foremost railway history experts.