Kettle Valley Railway

The Kettle Valley Railway must be one of the world's longest rail trails. The length of the trail is variously quoted at 450 or 600 km (perhaps the latter is with branches) which makes our British equivalents like the Bristol and Bath, and the Consett and Sunderland look pretty puny. The trail runs on a very sinuous course through the southern part of British Columbia keeping close to the US border, from Hope in the west to Midway in the east; at its eastern end it links to the Columbia and Western Railway Trail through to Castlegar. The last part of the line was closed to rail traffic in 1990, although a restoration project now operates trains over a short section in the Okanagan region.

Although the continuity of the trail is broken in places, it affords a superb walking and cycling trail which is a vital component of the Trans Canada Trail.

Of particular interest are the trestle bridges. Although these have all been rebuilt, possibly many times over, they still evoke the original style of the bridges along the line. Unfortunately, the most spectacular section, where 18 trestle bridges span side gullies as the railway snakes round the Myra Canyon near Penticton, was devastated by a forest fire in 2003 which destroyed 15 of the bridges. However, this site does include two trestle bridges elsewhere on the Trail - the Andrew McCulloch bridge (2002) at Naramata on Okanagan Lake, and a bridge which crosses the south-west corner of Skaha Lake immediately north of the town of Okanagan Falls. Finally, there are some general photos of the hot and dusty trail from Naramata up to Little Tunnel which stands on a conspicuous promontory way above Okanagan Lake

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The Andrew McCulloch Bridge, Naramata