Coming soon in April, retired railway conductor John Cowan will release a photo book of his days on the railway – including in Agassiz.
Scheduled to hit shelves in the spring, Canadian Pacific Trackside 1977-2012 with Conductor John Cowan has virtually sold out of its first printing, according to the author himself. The book features more than 250 colour photos from his travels all across B.C.
Throughout his long, storied career, Cowan rode the rails with a radio around his shoulder and a camera around his neck. He never intentionally took thousands of photos with a book in mind – at least, not at the time.
The Maple Ridge resident retired in 2012. Cowan had originally wanted to continue traveling the world, having been to 12 countries already, but COVID-19 sidelined his plans. However, now he had the time, ample material and opportunity to create a piece of railway history. When it came to creating his book, Cowan said the time the pandemic allowed him was “a blessing in disguise, in a twisted, bizarre way.”
Cowan was not a fan of traveling through the Agassiz and Hope areas in the winter time, due in no small part to the high-speed, frosty wind. He ran a grain train heading west, stopping at Burgess Feeds. Burgess Feeds was once located on the corner of Highway 9 and Pioneer Avenue in Agassiz, right next to the railroad tracks.
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“I remember one night in particular I was on the side of a car in November. My hat almost blew off,” Cowan said. “It was so cold there it might as well have been Moose Jaw!”
One of his most memorable stories comes from 1978 when he was working on a train called The Canadian. The train departed Golden in late October, having to stop in Kicking Horse Canyon when the patrolman reported a large rock on the tracks. Phone calls went out to track maintenance with no answer, so it was up to then-trainman Cowan, nine men and an especially strong farm girl from Saskatchewan to move the rock itself. 12 people and a crowbar eventually got the boulder off the track.
Cowan once had the contact information of everyone who helped move the boulder, but the copy of the information is lost to time – at least for now.
“A former CP employee who was working the train about that time saw the story in Medicine Hat and contacted another retired employee who lives in Alberta, who contacted me,” Cowan said. “We were able to identify the patrolman who found the rock; if he hadn’t been out there, the train could have easily derailed. We would’ve went into Kicking Horse.”
Despite multiple interviews broadcast from a variety of news outlets, no one else has come forward with possible identities of everyone involved in moving that boulder.
Copies of Cowan’s book are available through Morning Sun Books at morningsunbooks.com or by calling 908-806-6212. Copies may also be available through Pacific Western Rail by calling 1-866-840-7777.
– With Files from Colleen Flanagan