20 September 2006
The End of an Era in Field: CP Employee Retires
Field British Columbia - Thursday, 14 Sep 2006
marked John Gaffney's last day as Field's east signal maintainer. After 32 years with Canadian Pacific Railway, 25 of them in Field,
Gaffney has retired. His departure marks the end of an era in Field. He's the last full-time employee to be posted there.
Whoever takes over this position will not likely be permanent or full-time. He explains the east signal maintainer's job
will probably be held by several different CP employees over the years to come, each of them on their way up to something else within
the company.
Born in Montreal, Gaffney was stationed in Calgary prior to being in Field. He was the only full-time CP employee working
in Field for the past 12 years.
"My brother worked for CN (Canadian National Railway) and that's what got me started with the railway," he says. "I
worked for CN in the summers when I was still going to school. In 1974 I came to the mountains to see what the world was like."
He tried unsuccessfully to get a job in the West with CN, and when that didn't work, he tried CP. He started in Vancouver.
Some time later, he found his way to the Rocky Mountains again.
"I came up to visit the maintainer here in 1978 and I liked the place, it was a neat town and the mountains were close,"
Gaffney explains. "So when the job came open in 1981, I decided to bid on it."
Being on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week for 25 years, one can imagine Gaffney has seen some pretty interesting things along
those rail lines. Looking after slide fences, signals governing trains from Field to Lake Louise at all hours of the day, he has several
stories to tell.
"One year there was a sulphur train that was struck by an avalanche which brought 14 full rail cars right down to the
highway," he recalls. "It was a real heck of a time to clean it all up. We had to wait until the spring to get it all."
It was 1995 when that happened and he says since the spill happened in the park, there were additional environmental concerns to
consider when cleaning up such a mess. The rail cars were pushed nearly half a kilometre by the avalanche.
Looking back, he says a lot of his life over the last quarter-decade was spent in the Spiral Tunnels, just east of Field.
He recalls one afternoon working on the rails at the bottom of nearby Mt. Stephen, when a piece of the mountain - approximately 100 feet
by 150 feet - broke off above him. He could hear the sound of the rock cracking away.
"We heard it crack and we both looked up and it was right above our heads, about 1,000 feet above," Gaffney says. "When
you look at something like that it seemed like it was moving in slow motion. There was an eastbound train coming so I called them on the
radio and told them to stop - the train was probably past the last signal before the falling rock."
He remembers looking back, as he and his co-worker ran from the scene as fast as their legs could carry them, and watching
the giant piece of rock smash its way down the hill, smaller rocks spreading out and rolling down the mountainside below it.
Thankfully, only Gaffney's tools were destroyed in the fall. His heroic efforts stopping the coming train were mentioned in a CP
newsletter that followed.
Over the years, he's seen generations of bears grow up around Field. Never having a negative experience, he says he would be sure to
make lots of noise when he was responding to a call in the middle of the night. Usually with a shovel in hand, he would bang it on the
rails or rocks to announce his presence to those who were unsuspecting.
"You get used to seeing certain bears in certain locations," he says. "The bears are there a lot and all of my
experiences have been good. I've never had an incident where a bear has tried to chase me."
He recalls one afternoon near Partridge where he was climbing up a mast, doing checks on a light signal mechanism. Several feet below
him, a bear was sniffing at the spilt grain along the tracks. Gaffney remained still, content to just watch. After a few minutes,
realizing the bear hadn't noticed him, Gaffney gave a yell. He says the bear took off, startled, and then stopped a few yards away to
look back. The bear finally noticed Gaffney.
Thankfully, the majority of Gaffney's tales with bears are good ones.
"Some bears have been killed in the tunnels, but over the years I have only seen two."
He recalls a time when there was a grain spill east of Lake Louise. CP employees did the best they could to clean up the spill, but
ended up having to bury some of it. Gaffney says bears can smell the fermenting grain and sometimes stop and dig it up a bit.
He says in that location he saw a drunk bear. It seems the bear had consumed a little too much of the old grain and was struggling to
remain upright as it was perched on the rails. Knowing a train was coming, Gaffney did his best to scare the bear away with his voice.
Realizing his efforts were fruitless, he resorted to tossing small stones at the creature. Finally, it moved.
Memorable stories aside, Gaffney says working the way he did for 25 years takes its toll. He says after the first four or five, he was
no longer able to sleep in any kind of restful fashion. He says he was called out in the middle of the night, every second night it
seemed - especially in the winter.
"When I was first here, I was a lot younger and being called in the middle of the night and being able to ride a snowmobile in the
park when no one else could, I would think, "I get paid to do this." It was really exciting. It gets harder on you as you get
older to get out of bed in the middle of the night, when you've been sleeping." he says. "Now that I'm retired, the first
thing I'm going to do is get some well-deserved rest," he says. "My wife Karla and I have motorcycles so we are
going to be doing some travelling. We will just do the things we haven't been able to do. I've been tied to this job 24 hours a day,
seven days a week."
Visiting family would be nice, too. His mother lives in Florida and usually visits her for a week in February. He says this year, it
might be nice to go for a month instead.
And, Gaffney says he may even consider taking on the odd temporary job. He says it might be neat to try something totally different.
He's not had time for hobbies either.
"I like to ski and I haven't done much of that so I was thinking of maybe going to the hill and seeing if I can get a job up
there," Gaffney says. "Every day is going to be a weird day for the rest of my life."
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