That’s the title of an article in the current (Jan. 2010) Trains Magazine. In a nutshell, the author, who worked for GN/BN/BNSF from 1963 to 1999, says that GN made a mistake in 1929 with its new tunnel and alignment. He feels, that GN could have kept the old tunnel, and moved the west approach to the south side of the valley, and (?) stretch out the rise on the west side. I’m skeptical. His propsal seems to make sense to a know-nothing like me.
What I can’t agree with, is his idea that GN goofed, when the answer was so much simpler and less expensive. He suggests that Ralph Budd pushed it through to have a showpiece tunnel engineering project on his railroad. I believe, that even back in 1929, railroads had engineering and finance people on board who could help make the right decision. Did they miss something?
Related subject: We keep discussing electrification. Wouldn’t the Cascade Tunnel be a prime candidate for it?
The new Cascade tunnel was electrified but GN couldn’t ride of all that equipment fast enough after system wide dieselization. There are a couple of Columbia River hydro dams near Wenatchee at the bottom of the hill too. The electricity must have cost next to nothing. I’ve never seen an adequate explanation why this was done.
I wouldn’t assume all the decisions made by corporate are the right ones for their company, much less society. The classic economist, Adam Smith, is always held up as the paragon of the virtues ofmarket capitalism: “The Invisible Hand.” Turns out he is often misquoted and thought decisions by big capitalists were often quite wrong for the public.
as in the New York City operations. That could power either dedicated electrics for there only, or pick-up shoes on a western mountain version of the old New Haven dual-power FL-9’s and whatever the Amtrak/ Metro-North current replacement is called - I believe it is P32AC-DM - see:
Much would depend on the weather. If it is above 50 degrees, then yes, the add-ons would usually not take much extra time. However, if the train has just bashed through numerous deck-high or greater snowdrifts and the locomotives are encrusted with packed snow and ice, and/or if the temperature has dropped well below freezing, then the add-on/take-off operation would frequently be unworkable.
The story begins falling apart with the sentence, “Because the sun directly strikes south-facing peaks, they’re susceptible to avalanches in the spring.” Every study I have read on avalanches from the Rockies to the Cascades concludes that the main causes (to describe here in the most simple of terms) are periods of heavy snowfall followed by rain and/or sudden warming, often after cycles in which layers of ice or crusted snow have formed between larger snow slabs. None of these studies have ever mentioned exposure to sunlight. In fact, history says the 1910 Wellington avalanche cited in the story happened during rainfall, with thunder reported as a possible trigger.
The worst avalanche zone on the Stevens Pass route, for the railroad anyway, was the stretch between Wellington and Scenic on the loops which were abandoned in 1929. But the route proposed in this story would not protect trains from avalanches, as the author claims. Between Scenic and Wellington alone, his proposed route would take trains through 13 documented avalanche chutes, half of which are rated as “high” to “frequent” for slide potential. To say nothing of the large slide zone west of Deception Creek.
Before claiming the old Cascade Tunnel would afford BNSF greater capacity than the current Cascade Tunnel, there needs to be a more thorough comparison of the two. (I trust RWM and PDN will crunch the numbers against speed, emissions, etc., and give us the results.)
Old Cascade Tunnel: 2.63 miles long, 1.75 percent grade eastward, 3375-foot summit at east end.
New Cascade Tunnel: 7.79 miles long, 1.57 percent grade eastward, 2883-foot summit at east end.
20 minutes to clear fumes from new tunnel. How long to clear from old tunnel?
It seems to me the biggest shortcoming of both tunnels is their steep grade within, resulting in more exhaust build-u
In a discussion on the Trainorders forum, a former Chief Dispatcher for BN who was in charge of the line through the Cascade Tunnel said that the Tunnel Ventilation issue being a limiting factor on line capacity is a bunch of Horsefeathers. If it was a problem, then adding a mid-tunnel door like the Mount MacDonald Tunnel on CP has would solve the problem at a reasonable cost. The problem is the gradient through the tunnel and the distance between the sidings at either end. If the freight trains were the length of the Empire Builder and powered the same amount, you could operate a lot more trains per day through the tunnel. Where some problems with ventilating occur, they happen because the Dispatcher doesn’t begin the ventilation promptly. This can happen because the Dispatcher is distracted by things happening elsewhere on his district, or if he (she) just isn’t paying attention. And then there is the need for MOW to have track time, not just on the tunnel itself, but also anywhere between Skykomish and Wenatchee.
Consider, though, that even if the tunnel itself is graded flat, when the locomotives enter the tunnel, they are still working power pulling the train up whatever grade is on the approach to the tunnel. If it a short train, not too much of a problem; but if it is a long (9000’+) train, then the locomotives will be working power deep into the tunnel.
Cascade Tunnel is 1.57 percent eastbound, speed limit is 25mph, with a 20-minute delay for ventilation. Flathead Tunnel, similar in length to Cascade, is 0.62 percent eastbound, speed limit is 50mph, with no significant delay I’m aware of for ventilation.
I remember reading in a ‘‘history of American railroads’’ book by either Holbrook or Stover about the latter-day locating engineer, Edward Gillette* (1854-1936), for whom the Burlington named a town in Wyoming, which we now know as the heart of the Powder River Basin coal and railroad operations. (See, for example, the ‘‘Gillette and Campbell County Historical Outline’’ at: http://www.ccgov.net/departments/museum/gillette_history/index.html and also “Gillette P**hotos - From Wyoming Tales and Trails - This page: Gillette, The coming of the Railroad, Edward Gillette.” at:
Although what you say is true, sunshine does have an important effect: (from Wikipedia)
Slab avalanches account for around 90% of avalanche-related fatalities, and occur when there is a strong, cohesive layer of snow known as a slab. These are usually formed when falling snow is deposited by the wind on a lee slope, or when loose ground snow is transported elsewhere. When there is a failure in a weak layer, a fracture very rapidly propagates so that a large area, that can be hundreds of meters in extent and several meters thick, starts moving almost instantaneously. A third starting type is an isothermal avalanche, which occurs when the snow pack becomes saturated by water. These tend to also start and spread out from a point.
The snow pack on slopes with sunny exposures are strongly influenced by sunshine. Daily cycles of mild thawing and refreezing can stabilize the snow pack by promoting settlement, strong freeze thaw cycles will result in the formation of surface crusts during the night, and the formation of unstable isothermal snow during the day. Slopes in the lee of a ridge or other wind obstacle accumulate more snow and are more likely to include pockets of abnormally deep snow, wind slabs, and
I concur with what beaulieu and zardoz wrote above - they got to those very valid points before I could. [tup]
Flathead Tunnel is about 7 miles in length - references vary on that - but it appears to have a somewhat larger cross-section, which would promote train-induced ventilation. See this photo:
Re-doing Cascade Tunnel and Stevens Pass might become a moot point if the rumors of recent visitations by BNSF and WashDOT personnel to Snoqualmie Pass transpire into big investment there by Buffett and his bunch.
Snoqualmie Pass was the Milwaukee Road’s more southerly crossing, before it was abandoned and removed in the 1980s.
What are the pros and cons of that, from an operating persepctive, as best as we can discern them ? Tunnels and clearances for double-stacks and multi-level auto-racks ? Profile, grades and elevations ? Bridges still in place ? Connections to other BNSF lines - and which ones, with what kinds of traffic ? Are they more or less congested than the present routes ? Might this be part of a trade or swap to give up or sell other routes for commuter or passenger service ? Comparative distances and times across Washington state
Snoqualmie would pose only a 0.7 percent climb against WB grain headed for Puget Sound ports, coal headed for Centralia, WA, and coal, petroleum coke, and potash headed for Vancouver, BC, area ports (Roberts Bank, Neptune Terminals), vs. 2.2 percent on either Stevens or Stampede (and vs. the long way around via Wishram and Vancouver, WA).
EB loaded stacks (if able to clear the tunnel and if Americans ever get back to buying foreign stuff in droves again) would face 1.74 percent on the west slope, which tapers down to only 0.4 percent through Snoqualmie Tunnel.
New trackage over Snoqualmie would likely connect to the current BNSF Stampede Sub near Easton on the east side of the mountains. Don’t have my fleet of maps handy here at work to tell you exactly where the connection would be on the west side.
I believe there’s one bridge on the west slope that would need rebuilding.
MILW grade is currently a trail. I imagine BNSF would face some major P.R., legal, and environmental hurdles to get that property back from the public.
IIRC, the battery pack on the hybrid was capable of putting out the equivalent of 2,000HP for one hour (the batteries have a power limit). One approach would be to run the locomotives with the diesel engine running at half power with the batteries making up the rest. While not in the same league as using electric locomotives, I would think a 40 to 50 % reduction in exhaust and waste heat would ease the ventilation requirements.
If it were an issue that affected train capacity, wouldn’t it become a priority to see that the dispatcher began ventilation in a timely fashion? How hard would it be to set up something that automatically alerts the dispatcher when the train clears the tunnel?
If I read it right, the doors are closed (?) to ventilate? how does that work?
Item: The Stampede Pass & Tunnel serves as a ‘safety valve’ for the Stevens Pass & Cascade Tunnel route. The Stampede Pass line is still in service, but not used much. I don’t think BNSF management would consider changing the route to the old Cascade Tunnel route. That’s talking mega-$$$. Item: Mike Walker lists the Flathead Tunnel as 7.0 miles long. I don’t know the exact length. My old BN ETT notes that it must be “flushed” after each train by the fan system. Anyone know how long that takes? Item: I have a friend in Seattle that rides the old MILW Homestake Pass ROW on his motorcycle. He says he never sees hikers (litterers) on the path, but you can bet there would be a huge howl if it was converted back to a railway, just for “General NIMBY drill”.
Mike Power has overlooked some important operating characteristics when he judged the Cascade Tunnel as “An Engineering Mistake” in the January 2010 issue of TRAINS. In constructing Cascade Tunnel, Great Northern advertised that the route through the “new” (1929) tunnel would be 7.66 miles shorter than through the first tunnel. Mike indicates that 19.85 miles of the old line could be abandoned, but 18.6 miles would have to be rebuilt under his proposal. That means that his route would only save 1.25 miles, and that the “new” Cascade Tunnel route would be some 6.41 miles shorter than his proposal.
6.4 miles might not seem like much, but considering that track speed would be probably no more than 25 MPH (as it is today) and that the ruling grade would be 2.2 percent, most trains (especially those going uphill) would probably be going no faster than 20 MPH at best. This equates to an additional 20 minutes of running time with his proposal. Mike also failed to mention that the first Cascade Tunnel, though “only” 2.63 miles long, was an operation with electric locomotives to avoid the problem with fumes in the tunnel. Since the first Cascade Tunnel was even slightly steeper (eastbound) than the “new” version, logic would dictate that under his proposal, the first Cascade Tunnel, when changed to a diesel locomotive operation, would also have needed a tunnel flush.
The “new” tunnel can sometimes require up to 30 minutes for a flush after an eastbound train. </
The Mount MacDonald Tunnel has more than a door at mid-tunnel. There are also fans, and a large diameter shaft about 1/4 mile deep leading down to the tunnel. This shaft has a divider for the full length to keep the two halves of the tunnel separate during the ventilation process. The tunnel alignment was given some curves so that the mid-tunnel facility could be located at a point where reaching the surface was feasible. The cost for something similar for the Cascade Tunnel could easily by quite UNreasonable.
