Why did the Southern Pacific (at the beginning Central Pacific) choose to go over Donner(?) Pass with their original line, and not take the Feather River route?
In reading about the WP, it appears the Feather River route has about a 1% grade. The SP route has 2%-3%(?) grade, and is 2000 feet higher in elevation. Granted, the WP route does seem to have had a fair amount of problems with the river, and with rockslides. It seems like SP had a fair amount of even bigger challenges on their route. Since UP bought WP, they’ve upgraded the line, and it seems to work for them.
Shorter, cheaper, easier, faster – by far! The WP alignment was absolutely not feasible for the CP. The CP would have died not far above Oroville and history would be much different. Well, actually, more money and new backers would have been found, and that route abandoned for many years in favor of Donner Pass, the empty grade remaining as a lesson to all of us in stupidity and grasping for things irrevocably out of one’s reach.
Donner Pass ruling grade is nominally 2.2%, as are all the land-grant railroads (the B&O rule). In the Blue Canyon area, as timz may join to point out, there are some short stretches that are steeper.
Donner Pass is considerably less fragile and less costly to maintain than the WP. Remember which line has been closed by massive washouts and rockslides/mudslides for 30-60 days, repair costs in excess of $50 million, twice in the last 20 years? It wasn’t Donner.
Capacity of Donner Pass is also much higher – and much cheaper to add more.
As you point out, the WP has lower grades – 1.0% ruling throughout the Oakland-Salt Lake City main line – and in some respects lower operating costs. A penalty is however paid for additional car hire, crew costs, loc
Explain, if you will, the B&O rule of 2.4% grade. It does appear that most mountain lines have a limit of that grade, or at least the heavy duty mountain lines. I thought it was 2.3%, but who am I to argue .1%, particularly when I am not the one operating a train down the mountain!
Seriously, what made 2.3 or 2.4% so desirable or at least the limit?
I take it , then, that the builders of the Central Pacific must have looked at the Feather River route , and chose Donner Pass a s being the better alternative. Some refernces I’ve seen indicate that most thought it would crazy to even try building in the canyon.
Most everything written about WP also has glowing words of praise for Alfred Pearlman. Was he as succesful with WP as it’s made out to be? It would appear that he was just plain lucky that none of the expensive wash-outs and rockslides occured on his watch.
Does UP get enough use out of the line to justify $50 million in expences?
Oops, I meant 2.2%. Somehow I got 2.4% stuck in my head.
Nothing made 2.2% – or 116 feet per mile – special. It just happened to be the maximum grade of the B&O when it was built across the Appalachian Mountains. The federal government when it was searching for “standards” to write into the enabling legislation for the UP-CP decided that this was a reasonable maximum. Subsequently it was adopted by most of the enabling legislation for the land-grant railroads, in the U.S. as well as in Canada.
The B&O maximum grade could have been anywhere in the 2.0% to 2.6% regime and become the standard. Outside of that it’s likely a steeper or softer grade would have become the standard. Anything in the 2.0-2.4 range was a good compromise between operating costs and capital costs at that time. Today a more likely “standard” maximum grade is 1.0-1.2% for heavy-haul railroad new construction. Unless topography is really difficult a maximum grade of 0.7% is difficult to justify for heavy-haul, at least if it’s against the loads.
They did indeed look at the Feather River Canyon; the earthwork requirements made them leave. Interestingly, when the WP was built, the editors of Railway Age and Railway Gazette were torn between complimenting the engineers on their tenacity and questioning their understanding of the economics of railway location.
I have no idea if UP gets enough use of the canyon to justify its costs. I know of no-one who thinks the canyon is not a useful and valuable route.
A.E. Perlman gets a lot of press … well, he was colorful and interesting, and not shy. Everything everyone who knew him has told me leads to the impression he was a good engineer (he started in the engineering department at Rio Grande) and a good operating man. There wasn’t a lot, I think, that anyone could have done with the WP during regulation, other than sell it as quickly as possible to someone, anyone, with cash. At the NYC, Perlman clearly understood its problems and needs and I think made good decisions. Again, under regulation, everyone’s hands were tied. I think had Staggers occurred, say, 1960, the NYC under
There are always more factors to locating a rail line than the engineering involved. In the CP(SP) case, there were some significant economic factors. One was the silver mines at Carson City. These mines were requiring tons of supplies and the railroad leaders (being in the hardware business) wanted to get that business. Thus any route that was closer to CC than Feather River was more economically acceptable. The routes closer to CC than the Trukee river required crossing two summits - Donner only required crossing one.
CP was earning revenues almost from day one transporting mining supplies to the end of track - from which it was mule trained over Donner and then wagon trained to CC. However, it was the only source of CP revenue until linking with UP at Promentory.
The only factor in locating a rail line is money, with the occasional exception of politics. Engineering is the science of applied economics. I agree that Virginia City posed an attractive source of traffic, but had Virginia City been located in the Upper Feather River Canyon the CP still would have built via Donner. An effort to build in the Feather River in the 1860s would have met with failure; it was too expensive. Donner was the best route across the central Sierra Nevada, then and now.
I thought the B&O rule said not more than 116 feet per mile, interpreted literally-- in other words, the grade could exceed 2.2%, but couldn’t average more than 2.2% over any mile. Far as I know Donner lives up to that, for all practical purposes.
Pretty sure the B&O rule didn’t mention compensated grade, and of course Donner’s compensated grade does exceed 2.3%.
As it happens, I just checked the ramp east of Tunnel 18 on Track 1, and it averaged 2.8% over 1000 ft of straight track-- but that’s not part of the original construction.
It would appear that consulting the original legislation is in order. The source material I have, all secondary, says, 2.2% per mile.
Seems the Pacific Railway Act is now on line. Section 12 of the Pacific Railway Act of July 1, 1862, says:
“The track, upon the entire line of railroad and branches shall be of uniform width, to be determined by the President of the United States, so that, when completed, cars can be run from the Missouri river to the Pacific coast; the grades and curves shall not exceed the maximum grades and curves of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad; …”
So it’s not even as specific as “per mile.” That poses the question what the language of the bonds said …
Interesting - As you go farther south from Donner Pass, the pass elevations get higher. As you go north from Donner, the pass elevations get lower. Just about 20 miles north of Donner Pass is Yuba Pass at 6700 feet elevation; Another 20 miles northeast of Yuba is Beckwourth Pass (which WP chose) at 5210 feet elevation.
The question I have is in reference to the concept of aligning a railroad grade along a mountain’s “spine” so to speak to reach pass elevation, as was used by Judah and the SP in it’s eastbound approach to Donner. Is there that much difference in the steepness or otherwise usuitability of the slopes for a hypothetical eastbound approach to either Yuba or Beckwourth passes using the same technique of following a ridgeline to reach elevation? If not, wouldn’t that same technique used on one of those lower elevation passes have allowed for a reduced ruling grade without all the slide/washout risk of the WP line?
The irony, as I’ve read it, is that in 1869 and 1889 Arthur Kedding was foiled in his attempts by Collis P. Huntington. Had Huntington not jumped in when he did, both efforts probably would have been failures.
The ridgeline reconned by Judah and the Central Pacific (not SP) is highly atypical in mountain topography. Normally spur ridges are discontinuous or lead in the wrong direction or are interrupted by vertical or slide-zone topography, or both. Moreover the ridgeline used for Sacramento Hill led out onto the valley floor without any abrupt escarpment, and required practically no circuity.
The problem for WP was not Beckworth Pass but the western approach. Other than driving a very lengthy tunnel no more suitable alignment than the WP’s route exists than the one that was chosen. Similarly the CP took the best route for its time (as well as the present). The WP could have reached even further north but the circuity and running times were prohibitive; the selected route was bad enough compared to the CP.
If one were building this new today, tunneling for most of the length would be chosen, and the excess rise required to surmount either Donner would be mostly eliminated – there is very little wasted climb on the WP, which is remarkable. Tunneling costs have reduced dramatically as the experience base with TBMs (tunnel-boring machines) has increased, and tunneling does not contend with the environmental remediation costs for sidehill construction. Tunnelling in 1906 or 1866 was much more costly, per mile, than open-cut and cut-and-fill construction, due to the lack of mechanization at that time.
There were some locating engineers who erred but I see no evidence that Judah or the WP’s Virgil Bogue made any significant mistake.
I seem to recall that Henry J. Kaiser proposed a long tunnel for Donner in the late 1940s. If he did the SP knew the could not hope to finance such a project.
Not actually a long tunnel but a series of tunnels and an alignment in keeping with the tunneling economics of that era. Kaiser Engineers proposed a new alignment beginning just west of Auburn and ending just west of Verdi composed of 57.3 miles of tunnel, the longest nine miles. Maximum eastward grade was 1.9%, summit elevation was reduced to 6,200 feet and mileage reduced by 30 miles. Public financing would be required.
Today a similar proposal, if the proposed Blue Mountains Tunnel of UP and recent work in Europe is any model, would likely use two or possibly three tunnels and an eastward grade of 0.5% or less. It would also need to be parallel bores or double-track. And public money would still be needed.
Not to hijack this thread, but can you provide some more details on that Blue Mountains tunnel? This is the first I’ve heard of such a proposal, and on the surface appears a difficult proposal given that the Blue Mountains are more of a plateau than a distinct range. Seems such a tunnel would have to be rather long, 20 or 30 miles.
What was made public knowledge by being reported in CTC Board circa 1985-1987 I remember very little of. (I could be off on that date by plus or minus five years). Perhaps someone here could skim through the UP columns from that era and look up what was reported. I don’t recall if a public announcement was made that a study was underway or if the information just leaked out, but in any case I don’t want to get myself confused between what’s public and what isn’t.
What about the Feather River Canyon made it so difficult to build and maintain a railroad? The only photos I’ve ever seen of it make it look like a railline carved into the side of a cliff. Is there more to it than that?