Download or read book Forgotten Cascade Mountain Railroad Tunnels written by Vickers Marques (author) and published by . This book was released on 1901 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Abandoned Western Cascade Mountain Railroad Tunnels written by Marques Vickers and published by Marquis Publishing. This book was released on 2015-11-07 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The creation of the train route through the Western Washington Cascade Mountains proved a monumental challenge. A conflict arose between the engineering capabilities of designers and the treacherous topography and inclement weather of the region. This edition profiles and elaborately photographs the historical remnants of the Cascade route originating between Scenic and Stevens Pass. Remaining and abandoned train tunnels and snow sheds are intimately portrayed accompanied by historical commentary Amongst the featured attractions include the: Deception Creek Falls, Scenic Hot Springs, Windy Point Snow Shed and Railroad Tunnel, Western Portal entrance to the Cascade Grand Tunnel and the Wellington Railroad Tunnel and Snow Shed. Contextual insight from numerous sources is provided into the background, complexity and necessity for construction of numerous snow sheds following the 1910 Wellington catastrophe. Today the Iron Goat Trail traces the routing between Deception Creek and Wellington. It has evolved into a popular hiking destination. Two trailheads are most easily reached during the summer and early fall months via the ghost towns of Scenic or Wellington. Both feature parking lots easily accessible by car. The trail routing also parallels with the partially closed Old Cascade Highway and heavily travelled U.S. Route 2 (Stevens Pass Highway). The 1910 Wellington Avalanche In winter 1910, the city of Wellington was a miniscule town that existed exclusively due to the Great Northern Railway. Constructed in 1893, the town was the operational headquarters for tunnel construction, tunnel electrification and general maintenance along the line. It was also an important coal, water and rest stop for trains on route to Everett, Seattle and Tacoma. The edition details the massive blizzard and accompanying avalanche that occurred on March 1, 1910. The storm obliterated the train depot, sweeping two passenger cars into the Tye River and killing 96 passengers, the worst fatality count in American railroad history. Only 23 would survive the catastrophe that would initiate successive construction of eight miles of snow sheds covering twelve miles of track, a capable, but short-term solution. Many of the snow sheds and tunnels have partially collapsed due to their wood framing and exposure to inclement weather. They continue to slowly dissipate in condition or blend into the sloping terrain of granite hillsides. The permanent solution involved the construction of the Cascade Grand Tunnel beginning in 1925. The Great Cascade Tunnel dedicated during January 1929 may be one of the most understated engineering feats within the United States. The concrete portal is large enough to accommodate a locomotive and connecting train cars cut through 7.8 miles of granite. When inaugurated, it was acknowledged as the longest tunnel within the western hemisphere. Today it remains the longest within the lower 48 states. The architectural genius behind the construction would provide a permanent solution to the troublesome and persistent menace of deadly regional landslides and avalanches.
Download or read book The Abandoned Western Cascade Mountain Railroad Tunnels written by Marques Vickers and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-07-05 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The creation of the train routes through the Western Washington Cascade Mountains proved a monumental challenge. The conflict arose between the engineering capabilities of man and the treacherous topography and inclimate weather of the region. The nine miles of track connecting the towns of Stevens Pass, Wellington and Scenic, Washington ultimately proved a failure for the Great Northern Railway. The Iron Goat Trail that retraces the former routing is a popular hiking destination. The trailhead is easily accessible by car. The well-maintained path leads you through traces of two ghost towns that were obliterated by avalanche.In the last decade of the 19th century, railroads were the primary mode of transportation for transcontinental passenger travel and freight. Previously isolated and inaccessible portions of the country became connected. Geographical impediments were merely obstacles to overcome. As profits swelled, ambitious and bold routings were designed and realized. During the 1890s, construction innovations enabled greater travel and more direct routes. These projects, employing tunneling and snow sheds, began lining the mountainous stretches immediately past Stevens Pass on the route to the Everett and Seattle stations.Immigrant laborers cleared the hillsides of mammoth trees. They drilled and blasted rock to create a flat grade. Camps were required for the hundreds of workers to maintain the tracks and keep them operational during the winter snows. Snowdrifts on the mountains often piled as high as 25 feet on either side of the tracks, creating artificial canyons and muffling warning noises. Snow slides often trapped and delayed trains for long periods of time until snowplows and large crews could manually shovel the paths.Crossing the Western Cascades in winter was a daunting trek. Initially, the lush forests offered protection from avalanche perils. Over time, logging, grade construction and fires cleared the landscape making them vulnerable to heavy snow slides. Sparks emitted by the passing trains often ignited the forest.Along the Stevens Pass corridor between Wellington and Scenic, eight snowsheds and tunnels protected trains from the perilous conditions. Under these shelters, trains and passengers were considered safe. Exposed areas made trains susceptible to danger.Construction on the snowsheds began in 1893. Each were framed with untreated Douglas fir, hemlock and Pacific Silver Fir beams and reinforced with concrete. The interior of the structures however, created residual problems, often trapping smoke and hindering visibility. The summer heat caused the timbers to become dry and less resistant to sparks from passing trains.Maintenance costs skyrocketed during the winter months. The massive snows and periodic avalanches sometimes caused lengthy closures and worse fatalities. Derailments, destroyed bridges and the human risk factor made the decision to abandon the menacing stretch an economic necessity by 1921. Construction began in December 1925 of an alternate lower elevation extended tunnel route that remains today. Upon its completion, the doomed stretch between Stevens Pass, Wellington and Scenic was abandoned to the elements.The snowsheds and tunnels remain as relics. They have continued a slow but steady deterioration, crumbling and becoming defaced with graffiti. Their existence is a threat to the curious who enter due to unpredictable falling debris and flash flooding.Danger aside, imagination is stirred when entering these relics. On envisions a bygone era where the speed of transport was relative. A voyage by cross-country train does not match the speed required by contemporary travelers. In their silence and emptiness, the vacant tunnels and snow sheds resemble tombs depicting casualties of time.An irony persists that the most accessible remnants of this era were after the 1910 Wellington Avalanche that killed 96, the worst fatality count railroad history.
Download or read book A 30 mile Railway Tunnel Under the Cascade Mountains written by Hiram Martin Chittenden and published by . This book was released on 1916 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Eight mile Cascade Tunnel Great Northern Railway written by American Society of Civil Engineers and published by . This book was released on 1931 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Dedication and Opening of the New Cascade Tunnel a Monument to James J Hill written by Great Northern Railway Company (U.S.) and published by . This book was released on 1929 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contains the speeches given at the dedication ceremony and the banquet.
Download or read book The Cascade Low Level Tunnel written by Washington State Planning Council and published by . This book was released on 1936 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book First Report of the Cascade Tunnel Commission written by Cascade Tunnel Commission and published by . This book was released on 1929 with total page 10 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book New Cascade Tunnel written by and published by . This book was released on 1929* with total page 13 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Great Cascade Tunnel written by Keene Sumner and published by . This book was released on 1927 with total page 7 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Dedication and Opening of the New Cascade Tunnel a Monument to James J Hill written by Great Northern Railway Company (U.S.) and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Report on a Low level Tunnel Under the Cascade Mountains written by Washington State Planning Council and published by . This book was released on 1936 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Great Northern Railway New Cascade Tunnel written by T. Michael Power and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Great Northern Railway Long Tunnel Through Cascade Range written by Great Northern Railway Company (U.S.) and published by . This book was released on 1926 with total page 15 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The White Cascade written by Gary Krist and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2008-01-22 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The never-before-told story of one of the worst rail disasters in U.S. history in which two trains full of people, trapped high in the Cascade Mountains, are hit by a devastating avalanche In February 1910, a monstrous blizzard centered on Washington State hit the Northwest, breaking records. The world stopped—but nowhere was the danger more terrifying than near a tiny town called Wellington, perched high in the Cascade Mountains, where a desperate situation evolved minute by minute: two trainloads of cold, hungry passengers and their crews found themselves marooned without escape, their railcars gradually being buried in the rising drifts. For days, an army of the Great Northern Railroad's most dedicated men—led by the line's legendarily courageous superintendent, James O'Neill—worked round-the-clock to rescue the trains. But the storm was unrelenting, and to the passenger's great anxiety, the railcars—their only shelter—were parked precariously on the edge of a steep ravine. As the days passed, food and coal supplies dwindled. Panic and rage set in as snow accumulated deeper and deeper on the cliffs overhanging the trains. Finally, just when escape seemed possible, the unthinkable occurred: the earth shifted and a colossal avalanche tumbled from the high pinnacles, sweeping the trains and their sleeping passengers over the steep slope and down the mountainside. Centered on the astonishing spectacle of our nation's deadliest avalanche, Gary Krist's The White Cascade is the masterfully told story of a supremely dramatic and never-before-documented American tragedy. An adventure saga filled with colorful and engaging history, this is epic narrative storytelling at its finest.
Download or read book Great Northern Opens World s Fifth Longest Railroad Bore written by P. N. Peterson and published by . This book was released on 1929 with total page 4 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book 1910 Wellington Disaster The written by Deborah Cuyle and Rodney Fletcher and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2019-02-11 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The town of Wellington was located by the Stevens Pass summit in the Cascade Mountains. During the last days of February in 1910, the snow was relentless in the Cascades, falling as much as one foot per hour and rising up to 20 feet deep in areas. Rotary plows could not keep the lines open as snow covered the railroad tracks almost immediately after being cleared. The Seattle Express, coming from Spokane, and a fast mail train were stranded just beyond the "safety" of the Cascade Tunnel, where they remained unmovable for almost a week under the snowpacked mountains. On March 1, an avalanche swept away the tracks and passengers aboard the two trains as well as several of Wellington's buildings and homes. Almost 100 individuals were killed in just a few seconds, creating America's deadliest avalanche and train disaster in history. Today, the site is part of the Iron Goat Trail off Highway 2, east of Skykomish. The snowshed, the abandoned original Cascade Tunnel, and various scraps of the trains left in the ravine are the only evidence that remain of Wellington, its long-forgotten inhabitants, or the disaster."--Amazon.com.
