Colorado Hwy 24 North of Leadville at Tennessee Pass closed because part of the road has collapsed into an old Railroad Tunnel. Not the inactive UP Tennessee Pass - but and older abandoned railroad.
See link -
What old Railroad might this be - Denver South Park + Pacific ?
Steve
D&RGW I believe…
Wow, that is the ex-Rio Grande Tennessee Pass line, it may be a tunnel that was bypassed while the line was still operational, I cannot remember an active tunnel there, a very rugged area with tall highway bridges, headed toward Minturn. Colorado has forced UP to keep the track in place to hopefully bypass Denver for coal trains someday (UP’s main owner, Anschutz, wanted to sell that area to Vail Associates for more lifts and water rights) but it would be hard to reopen if a tunnel collapsed.
activated
Now they are saying it is near the Tennessee Pass summit, I’ll bet it is one of the abandoned narrow gauge tunnels they bypassed when they bought old Colorado Midland track in the area that was better engineered, or even the first Tennessee Pass tunnel, which DRGW just abandoned in place when they built a new one.
The news article said the old railroad tunnel collapsed decades ago - this portion of the highway is adjacent to the existing Tennessee Pass tunnel on the UP Mainline, which has been unused - for what - 12 years now ? But I don’t think the sinkhole is in the un-used UP Tennessee Pass Mainline. Did the Denver Rio Grande change the track alignment at one time? There were several railroads serving Leadville at times in the past.
Steve
Just for the record, Colorado didn’t “force” the TP line to remain in palce - the state supported the abandonment of the line in the UP-SP merger. To the extent anyone “forced” UP to keep it in place, it was STB, which approved discontinuance of service over the line, but refused to permit full abandonment until UP was able to successfully reroute traffic from the line. Obviously, UP did that a long time ago, since the line has been inactive since 1998. UP could have easily obtained full abandonment authority in the intervening years. But, to date, it has never gone back to STB to get that authoriity. That’s UP’s choice - nobody forced them to do it.
Depending where the collapse occurred, there are a number of inactive rail tunnels in the area. The TP line has gone through several reroutings, particularly around the summit. I believe there are two older bores in addition to the last one DRGW used. There are also ROWs (and presumably tunnels) from other abandoned railroads in the Malta-Leadville area.
I am trying to remember the layout. I lived in Denver in 1997, and spent many days up there that year taking photos in rain and sleet (!) after they announced it would close, even though I normally am not a “photo” railfan. The highway is about 300 feet from both portals of the tunnel in use in '97, and crosses it in the middle, and there is an abandoned, timber lined tunnel closer to the highway that you can only see at the west (north) portal. As I recall reading they built the second tunnel during either WWI or WWII when they decided they couldn’t wait to enlarge the first one because of the war. I’ll bet it is the first one that has collapsed, because no one inspected it for 70 or more years.
In line with the facts presented in Mudchicken’s link [See above]
This is what the article from the OP says:
"…The Colorado Department of Transportation said Tuesday that U.S. 24 is closed indefinitely in both directions, citing danger to motorists.
Officials say the railroad tunnel collapsed decades ago but much of the soil above it remained frozen until recently…"
Here’s a nice video showing the layout around Tennessee Pass, as I thought it is the original tunnel, in use prior to WWII, that collapsed, not the tunnel in use until 1997.
Last night on the Evening News there was a brief piece that showed Highway Crews working on this collapse ( sinkhole). Tey were show using a small track mounted drill rig and mentioned that the ‘hole’ was over 100 feet deep.
While living in SE Kansas I worked on a Highway Job filling a sink hole that occurred when an old mine tunnel collapsed. The solution was to pump a concrete slurry into the hole til a base could be made to fill with rock from surface. They used a slurry mix called locally " Flo-Fill" took over three weeks of hauling and pumping to get it solid enough for the road to be reopened. Similar situation on US 54 East of Ft. Scott, Ks. when the new road was constructed over an old coal mining area.
I am sure that the State will finally fill the hole over the tunnel collapse, as cheaply as possible, and wait til it happens again, and then repeat the process. Political entitles seem to never be proactive, only reactive. [2c]
I posted a TOPO map of the area in 1955 and 1901 side by side:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/18325258@N04/7653474160/in/photostream
It looks like the highway and the railroad have both moved around over the years.
Rick
Rick ( RBYVRR):
Thanks for the maps! Kind of interesting stuff!
And Welcome here! [#welcome]
Hope you enjoy your visits and future posts!