While doing some research on my home town of Wenatchee, WA, I stumbled up this short discussion by the University of Houston’s College of Engineering about the tunnels built to avoid avalanches on Stevens Pass by the Great Northern Railway Co.
http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi2860.htm
Don’t play the audio, unless you want to hear a PBS voice read the document to you. 
Steve,
The article read as if no one had ever heard of the history of Steven’s Pass… Well I guess non-railfans!
Your title threw me off, I thought we were going to be discussing the other tunnels: Swede, Merritt, Gaynor… 
Craig Townsend said:
Steve,
The article read as if no one had ever heard of the history of Steven’s Pass… Well I guess non-railfans!
Your title threw me off, I thought we were going to be discussing the other tunnels: Swede, Merritt, Gaynor…
Whaddya expect from the University of Houston, fer cryin’ out loud? They’re probably surprised the tunnels aren’t under the Potomac River.
Steve Featherkile said:
Craig Townsend said:
Steve,
The article read as if no one had ever heard of the history of Steven’s Pass… Well I guess non-railfans!
Your title threw me off, I thought we were going to be discussing the other tunnels: Swede, Merritt, Gaynor…
Whaddya expect from the University of Houston, fer cryin’ out loud? They’re probably surprised the tunnels aren’t under the Potomac River.
Which Houston would that be? Apparently there is one each in ten states. 
Took a while to find, but its Houston Texas. Apparently, we are supposed to know that.
Now that article would be really interesting if they mentioned GN’s idea to build a tunnel from Skykomish to Leavenworth… I’m not sure where I read about this proposal, but it would have ended up being a 30+ mile long tunnel underneath the pass.
Are they at the same altitude?
72 meters/236 ft difference
1.5% grade. Better than the current 2.2% over the pass, now. Expensive, though.
“Ten years after the tunnel opened, the surrounding area was hit by an especially strong blizzard. Snow fell for nine days at a rate of up to a foot an hour.”
At only half that , I reckon on 108 ft deep .
No wonder they needed a tunnel .
Mike Brit
Steve Featherkile said:
1.5% grade. Better than the current 2.2% over the pass, now. Expensive, though.
Expensive, and having a 30+ mile one way main would certainly limit the amount of traffic. I think this proposal was talked about right before construction started on the new Cascade Tunnel. Would have to be an electric tunnel for certain!
Steve Featherkile said:
1.5% grade. Better than the current 2.2% over the pass, now. Expensive, though.
Back then it would have taken a very, very, very long time to build. The Gotthard base tunnel - 57km (35.4 miles) - has been a-building since 1999 (that doesn’t include the prep drilling/excavations) with 665 days to go until the opening.
http://www.alptransit.ch/en/home.html
And this with all of the most modern construction methods. 
BTW the geology through the Cascades would have been as tricky if not trickier.
PS @ Craig The Gotthard project has two separate parallel bores with cross connections every 1100ft
Mike Morgan said:
“Ten years after the tunnel opened, the surrounding area was hit by an especially strong blizzard. Snow fell for nine days at a rate of up to a foot an hour.”
At only half that , I reckon on 108 ft deep .
No wonder they needed a tunnel .
Mike
Makes for great skiing, though. Stevens Pass is one of the great ski areas in the Pacific Northwest.
Steve Featherkile said:
Makes for great skiing, though. Stevens Pass is one of the great ski areas in the Pacific Northwest.
When your not skiing on Cascade Concrete!
HJ,
I can’t imagine the engineering challenge of trying to build a 30+ mile in the early 1900’s let alone now with modern technology.
Amazingly the New Cascade Tunnel when it was build was only off by a few inches in each axis.
Testament to the basic engineering skills of the surveyors.
Craig Townsend said:
HJ,
I can’t imagine the engineering challenge of trying to build a 30+ mile in the early 1900’s let alone now with modern technology.
Amazingly the New Cascade Tunnel when it was build was only off by a few inches in each axis.
Testament to the basic engineering skills of the surveyors.
The double track Gotthard summit tunnel (9.3 miles, opened 1882) was off by 13" in the horizontal axis and 2" in the vertical axis.
On the new one the horizontal was off by 3.14" and the vertical by 0.39". I would call that a “slight” improvement. (http://rhb-grischun.ca/phpBB3/images/smilies/3.gif)
And it is still a single track tunnel! Everyone thinks that the RR is the answer to our transportation needs but they only build single track main lines! Why is that? We now have 100 car coal trains running the Puget Sound Corridor alone with the oil trains. Note recent events with a couple of tank cars in Seattle. Still mostly a single track main line! At least the empties go back over Stevens Pass! I think of the famous 7 P’s.
Paul
E. Paul Austin said:
And it is still a single track tunnel! Everyone thinks that the RR is the answer to our transportation needs but they only build single track main lines! Why is that? We now have 100 car coal trains running the Puget Sound Corridor alone with the oil trains. Note recent events with a couple of tank cars in Seattle. Still mostly a single track main line! At least the empties go back over Stevens Pass! I think of the famous 7 P’s.
Paul
Other than long tunnels, the railroads/railways have calculated that long double track islands - long enough to have rolling meets - together with smart RTC will do the trick … up to a certain traffic density.
Years back CP Rail was considering double tracking the TransCon. If I remember correctly that intention fell victim to the next economic downturn. They also considered electrifying the Laggan, Mountain and Shuswap Subs (Calgary to Kamloops with the 2.2% grades). It would have cost a fortune and since large stretches of the line are in large snowfalls/many avalanches territory it would have been a maintenance nightmare, too.
For Craig… does it take 30 minutes to change locomotives at the head of a train?
Did the GN and later successors loose the bet when they removed the catenary from the Scenic Division?
Wouldn’t it have made sense to extend the cat from Skykomish down the hill to Everett or on to Interbay, and run the electrics from Wenatchee all the way to Everett or Seattle?
Or, as an alternative, why not hook up some electrics on the front and rear of a train and just drag/push the train through the tunnel only, like was done in the first tunnel, leaving the diseasals at idle? Much less exhaust to clear out.
Yes Steve it takes a bit longer than in the garden. OTOH hooking up the juicers front and back should (???) have been quick.