The measurement of this track was in dispute so the card played say and gave it as no less than 300 miles in length. The lack of rainfall meaning the engines have to take water from various stop-off points along the route if they want to get from one end to the other. For the average Brit the thought of travelling 300 miles in a straight line without seeing anything so much as a tree is quite impossible to imagine. Travelling a couple of miles without seeing a Burger Bar is pushing the bounds of reason. In England the rail system is renowned for its feeble excuses as to why a train runs late.
Autumn causes chaos when leaves fall on the tracks.
Anyway in the Rockies snow and avalances were something of a problem for rail communication. Not content with the idea they had the wrong type of snow Canadian Pacific built snow sheds which were designed to keep the snow, right or wrong kind, off the tracks. The card shows a train about to enter a gap in these protective sheds. Well in the summer there was a constant danger of fire and to have a line completely enclosed in wooden structure was not seen as a clever idea so fire breaks were left. Card 26 shows a different approach in Norway.