Wood sided coal car - Lethbridge, AB
Posted by: 
T0SHEA
N 49° 40.162 W 112° 48.044
12U E 370067 N 5503427
The Lethbridge Visitor Centre & Rest Area is one of the most complete and well appointed that we have yet to encounter.
Waymark Code: WMXRM9
Location: Alberta, Canada
Date Posted: 02/20/2018
Views: 1
As part of the features of the Lethbridge Visitor Centre and Rest Area is the Chinook Country Rest Area which has something for every traveler and visitor to the area. Included in the rest area are picnic tables and shelters, playground, exercise equipment, informational sign boards about area and history, walking trails, day use area, RV parking, sani dump station and huge shade trees to just relax.
Beside the fitness area stands this old coal car, built primarily of wood, with a steel undercarriage and wheels. It spent its life hauling coal out of one of the several coal mines in the Lethbridge area, part of a train of coal cars which endlessly ran in and out of the mine, hand filled with coal by miners, then dumping its load at a tipple. The mine trains were usually pulled by compressed air locomotives, as gasoline or diesel couldn't be used inside coal mines and often electricity wasn't available. From the tipple coal was loaded onto trains to be hauled to various markets across the continent. It was coal that gave rise to Lethbridge when coal was discovered in the Oldman River Valley adjacent to the present city of Lethbridge. At the time this would have been an important discovery, as the railroad was being built across Western Canada and its locomotives were hungry for coal.
