Quote:
Originally Posted by Trainguy
It used to go north near 176th st and around that huge hill into Cloverdale and continued north until it connected with the (now) CN Rail. However, that route was deemed too steep and they opted for a water-level route. Thus we have the BNSF snake around Whiterock/ Cresent Beach and then north to the Fraser river bridge.
If you go back to May 18th 2016 (page 1) in this thread you can see a map of the original alignment.
|
Off the bat, I wasn't even aware of this previous late 1800's alignment until this thread from way back. As such, since I am a history geek and reside not too far from same, quite awhile back I went to to Google Earth in order to discern the original alignment and then subsequently travelled publicly accessible lands.
BTW, the area has nothing to do with Cloverdale, no huge hill is involved, and the gradient was not steep at all by estimation. More particularly, we are talking about the area between current 8th Ave. and 32nd Ave., which current Hwy 15 (176th St.) traverses on a straight line and over a huge hill.
Back then, in order to avoid same, then civil engineers utilized a curvilinear route utilizing the Hazelmere Valley in South Surrey between 8th Ave. and 32nd Ave. That routing was along roughly the same flatlands connecting either sides of the ridge.
Again, similar flatlands were extant at the bottom of the ridge through Hazelmere Valley and mostly toward 32nd Ave. in the north.
Routing:
1. North along then 176th Street;
2. Swung eastward at 8th Ave.;
3. Crossed 16th Ave. at roughly 179th St.;
4. Continued eastward along base of bluff through Hazelmere Valley;
5. Crossed 184th St. at ~19th Ave.;
6. Headed northward and crossed ~185th St. at 20th Ave. continuing northward to 24th Ave.;
7. Then swung westward at ~25th Ave. straight-lining to 176th St./32nd Ave.
Not much gradient (actually gradual) in the northern portion and if same was any problem, I believe that they could simply have dug a short perhaps 5 - 10 ft. "cut" (after the fact) in order to alleviate any such potential problem. Frankly, it was a nice "clean" routing based upon my observations.
BTW, I suspect that the original lot plans filed at the Land Title Office originated from the construction of this rail corridor from the late 1800's. Why? Along the corridor, one can clearly witness buildings that do not conform to the "grid" in the area. More particularly they are "angled" along and aside the original rail corridor routing.
To wit, within the past couple of years, either/or the City of Surrey/Metro Vancouver constructed a one-storey brick building in the NW quadrant of 184th St./24th Ave. (suspect it's a pump-house of some sort). Said structure fronting 184th St. is, strangely enough, not parallel with 184th St. Moreover, it is "angled" at the exact same locale where the original rail corridor routing crossed 184th St. heading westward.
BTW, here is a Google Earth map of the original corridor and one can clearly delineate same as, for whatever reason, at least a narrow band of bushes/trees follows the original alignment splitting farmland. (perhaps old rail ballast rendering land not farmable?)
From 8th Ave./176th St. in the south to 32nd Ave./176th St. in the north:
https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.04258.../data=!3m1!1e3