Today it is sidled by two vehicle bridges but, when it was constructed, there was no crossing for miles around and nothing at all for trains. The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway (GTPR) originally intended to cross the North Saskatchewan River where the High Level Bridge now stands, but the rail company was unable to reach an agreement with the Canadian Pacific Railway. With some monetary inducement from Edmonton, the railway decided instead to cross the river at Clover Bar, where the river was at its narrowest. Construction commenced in 1907.

It was a massive undertaking and, to meet the grade on both sides of the valley, the plans called for a structure 138 feet above mean low water level. Materials were transported on a spur built eastwards from the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) main line near modern day 66th Street and 125th Avenue.

The Clover Bar Bridge was completed in 1908, a year before track was laid from the east. A substantial embankment was built to keep the track relatively level until west of a crossing at 50th Street.

Rather than crossing at grade, the GTPR decided to cross the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) main line (near today's 125th Avenue and 66th Street) on a wooden trestle, approached by a 0.4 per cent grade from the east. The trestle, completed in May 1909, was 1,819 feet long and 42 feet high - and so it became known as "the high line." It was removed in 1923 after the CNoR became part of Canadian National Railway (CNR) and a complex crossing and junction at grade, the East Junction, was completed.

A map published in 1913 in the North Edmonton Industrial Review shows a Beverly Railway Station at the 50th Street crossing, but research by railway historian Alan Vanterpool indicates a Beverly station was unlikely. There was already a station at Clover Bar about three miles to the east and there was another at 66th St on the joint CNoR and GTPR lines, approximately four miles west of Clover Bar. None of the GTPR/CNR employee timetables from the time describe such a station, and if one existed, it is doubtful that it picked up or discharged paying passengers. A request for a Beverly Railway Station had been repeatedly forwarded from successive town councils starting in 1914, but to no avail.

Edmonton, which had become a city in 1904, gave the land between 101st Street and 116th Street and between 104th and 105th Avenues to the CNoR under the condition that the railway build a divisional point there. A station was built at 101st Street and 104th Avenue (where the Baccarat Casino is today).

When the first Grand Trunk Pacific train pulled into the CNoR station in downtown Edmonton at 8:15 pm on July 4th, 1910, it was a huge event. "Two thousand people cheered arrival of first G.T.P. Train" read the headline in the Edmonton Bulletin. Edmonton's total population at the time was about 20,000 and so about 10 per cent of the populace turned out for the momentous occasion.

The train, Edmonton Express No.1, had taken slightly more than 30 hours to travel from Winnipeg an exceptional rate of travel for the day. As the train steamed to the platform, "the band played and the crowd led by Mayor (Robert) Lee and President McGeorge, of the Board of Trade, cheered the new arrival to the echo," the Bulletin reported.

As it travelled towards Edmonton, the train attained speeds of 40 to 50 miles per hour (60 to 80 kilometres per hour) and, as a Bulletin reporter observed, "glided along as smoothly as a rubber-tired vehicle a concrete pavement." The GTPR rail bed had been constructed with particular attention to detail and the Edmonton Express No. 1, along with four other trains fitted for the Winnipeg to Edmonton service, featured seven coaches including a baggage car, mail car, two first class cars, a sleeper car and a parlour and caf car.

To commemorate the event, Mayor Lee and President McGeorge of the Board of Trade climbed onto the roof of the Windsor Hotel bus and called for the attention of the crowd. "The arrival of the first through passenger train of the G.T.P service," said his worship, "marks this as one of the red letter days in Edmonton's history."

In the early 1900's, the GTPR became the biggest shipper of coal in the province and almost all that coal was obtained from mines on either side of the Clover Bar Bridge. The Beverly mines that supplied the railway included the Clover Bar, Humberstone and Old Bush.

The Clover Bar Mine was located near the bottom of the river valley just south of the bridge. The hoist shaft was 85 feet deep and roughly 1,000 feet south of the GTPR main line and 2,000 feet east of 34th Street.

In 1907 the mine inspector reported that there had been fire in part of the seam for years. A surface fire in 1909, not related to the seam fire, destroyed the surface plant and resulted in the cave-in of the first southern hoisting shaft. The mine entrance was relocated that year to be better served by a railway spur. For the first half of the 20th century, the railway bridge was the only way to cross the river between Beverly and Clover Bar. Residents and miners walking to work at the mines on the eastern side of the river regularly walked across the top deck of the structure, dodging trains.

"There were about eight wooden water barrels across the bridge -- four on each side," remembers long time resident Harry Walters. If a train came when you were on the bridge you would climb into the barrel until the train passed. Dad told us one night when he came home from the mine the wind was so strong that he and the other miners had to crawl on their hands and knees across the bridge."

In the summer of 1953, the Beverly (vehicle ) Bridge opened, bringing to an end the need for harrowing and dangerous high level crossings. A twin vehicle bridge was added in 1972, also to the south of the old railway bridge.

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