New Cascade Tunnel

New Cascade Tunnel.

My most recent issue of Trains Magazine, January 2010, has an interesting article by T. Michael Power.
It suggests Great Northern Railway’s 7.79-mile New Cascade Tunnel, opened in 1929, never should have been built.
It replaced the original Cascade Tunnel of 2.63 miles, and allowed abandoning the original line, with its many snowsheds.
The original line opened in 1893, an effort by James J. Hill to advance to the Pacific Northwest.
The Cascade Mountains in Washington were a barrier.
Great Northern is gone, so now the Cascade line is owned and operated by Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF).
At first the New Cascade Tunnel was electrified — just like the old.
But electrification on Great Northern ended in 1956.
With that the new Cascade Tunnel became a bottleneck.
It can only pass 33 trains per day.
After each train it has to be closed for ventilation by big fans.
The New Cascade Tunnel addressed major problems with the original line.
The original line was located in a hurry.
It was located in winter, when summer would have been better.
It also was located on the north side of a valley, where the sun could start avalanches.
Beyond that, the line required long horseshoe loops to gain elevation. An avalanche could close both legs.
Another problem was logging next to the railroad; forests that could stop avalanches.
Timber could be dragged to the railroad for shipment; it supplied money for building the railroad.
Without forests, the railroad had to resort to snowshed protection — those snowsheds were built out of the same timber that had been logged.
Snowshed maintenance is costly.
All of these considerations I’d never thought of, although Baltimore & Ohio Railroad’s original line to the Ohio River, not through Pittsburgh, now its “West End,” and operated by CSX, was also a disaster.
That railroad is located on unstable earth, subject to landslides and washouts.
It also has to cross “The Glades,” an area of northwestern Maryland up on the Allegheny Plateau, subject to horrendous snowstorms.
The New Cascade Tunnel made it possible to close the looping portions of the old line, with its costly snowsheds.
Well, okay; but the new Cascade Tunnel was incredibly costly, and still has steep approaches.
Power suggests more sensible would have been to relocate to the south side of the approaching valley, and continue use of the old Cascade Tunnel.
But in the late ‘20s railroaders were on a tunnel frenzy.
Ralph Budd, the visionary CEO of Great Northern, had just finished Moffat Tunnel on Denver & Rio Grande’s Dotsero Cutoff; 6.2 miles.
Two other long railroad tunnels had been opened previously in Switzerland: Simplon at 12.3 miles, and Lötschberg at 9.1 miles.
“The engineering view at the time was to penetrate major mountain ranges with tunnels.”
Power bolsters his view by comparing his proposed line with Union Pacific’s Donner crossing of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California, what was originally the first transcontinental railroad, that portion built by Central Pacific, and eventually owned by Southern Pacific.
Some comparison!
Donner is terrible; clear up to 6,881 feet, and bombarded by blizzards.
Operating it is a slugfest, and just keeping it open a battle.
Years ago the huge roundhouse at the summit was fully enclosed (covered).
The summit of the Cascades is only 3,383 feet.
It’s comparing apples to oranges.
At 7.79 miles, the New Cascade Tunnel is the longest in the lower 48.
But 33 trains per day is pitiful.
Norfolk Southern’s old Pennsy line over the Alleghenies is 60-80 trains per day, yet not busy enough to justify concrete ties.