User:Orschstaffer/Alpine Tunnel (Colorado)

This page is the work of User:Orschstaffer and is not an encyclopedia article. It is a work in progress and comments, discussion are welcome at its talk page. O = M C 4 21:33, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Historical Concept of the Alpine Tunnel
Mining at Leadville and the Elk Mountains entertained two narrow-guage steam-driven railroads to vie for business in the developing Gunnison Valley. The Denver and Rio Grande had reached Canon City in 1874. General William J. Palmer was at it head. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe had built a line to Santa Fe in 1876. Both lines were poised for further developments over the range which is the Continental Divide. Early as 1871-1872 the D&RG had run preliminary surveys from Canon City west along the Arkansas River as far as Arkansas City (now Salida), no further work had been done. In 1878 the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe made a grading from Pueblo to Canon City. The Rio Grande then began operations for two years to conquer the Royal Gorge. Early in 1880, a compromise entailing a large sum of money, gave the gorge and unfinished roadbed to Palmer and his Denver and Rio Grande.

President John Evans of the Denver and South Park Railroad, in answer to concerns of a committee from the mining areas, had written that there would probably not be any other line built except for the South Park and as well the probability of none being constructed over the range. At this time the Rio Grande and the South Park had an agreement for common track over Chalk Creek to Buena Vista and Leadville. The South Park had already contracted for the route into Pitkin and final surveys for bringing the line into Gunnison as soon as money and labor could build it. This was the scenario when Denver and Rio Grande and Santa Fe reached their agreement over the gorge in February of 1880.

March 1880, the Gunnison Town Company's split into East Towners and West Towners over where the central business district should be, nearly ruined the town. Richardson and Mullin of the West Towners purchased 1000 acres of land on the west side to be used for town and railroad purposes as an inducement to the South Park as they were already building toward Gunnison Valley. On June 29, 1880 a contract to build the depot on the corner of New York Avenue and Ninth Street was signed. Soon after it was learned that not only the South Park rails would enter Gunnison but the Rio Grande too would build rails into the town.

Two routes considered by Palmer were Marshal Pass and Monarch Pass. About the first of June the final survey marks over Marshal Pass were laid and the contract for laying tracks into Gunnison Town was finalized in September. Evans' South Park had the advantage of time and distance but the terrain over Altman Pass led to decisions to bore through the Divide.

Work on the Tunnel Begins January 1880
Engineers of the South Park line encountered several problems which were not counted for once the tunneling had begun. Work at the high elevation (11,523 feet above sea level), near hurricane force winds and temperatures which dropped to 40 degrees below zero caused the men to leave in large numbers. The Union Pacific Line gave recruits from the East and Midwest free fare to the work-site because the men would only work for one or two days and on occasions the whole work force would walk off the job. More than two hundred men were employed daily to keep the work continuous throughout the project5. A labor force which should have taken 400 to 500 men turned into a constant hiring spree of nearly 10,000 souls.

Another unseen expense of building the tunnel was the geology of the mountain. What was expected to be self-supporting granite turned out to be slide rock and decomposed granite which required timbering the whole tunnel. Five hundred thousand feet of California redwood timber was used to support the tunnel roof. The redwood was chosen because it was slow to ignite and its low rate of flame spread. With its heavily timbered approaches the tunnel was 2500 feet and constructed at a cost of 300,000 dollars.

At its high elevation, snow was another impediment not only to the work crew but the operation of running the trains as snow sheds had to be built on either side of the mountain. These consisted of huge hinged doors which were closed to prevent snow drifts from blocking the entrances. Each shed had a worker who opened the portal at the signal from the approaching train. The east portal had a 16 car length passing track aptly called Atlantic. At the west portal stood Alpine Station, a small community of South Park workmen. It consisted of an engine house, which contained inside a coal bin and water tank. A store house, section house and bunk house were also constructed at the station. On February 20, 1883 a telegraph office was opened. Inside the stone engine house, 6 engines could be serviced and repaired at one time.