The Hood River Glacier, Hood River, OR., September 26, 1907, page 1
PROGRESS MADE ON NORTH BANK
Rails Being Laid At Both Ends
Passenger Trains Will Be Put On Soon To Connect With Boat Lines of Company
It is expected that the North Bank road will be completed as far as Lyle by
October 15, and that passenger trains will be put on to connect with the boat
line at that place as soon as the rails are laid. This is the opinion of A.W.
Zimmerman, agent for the North Bank and regulator line at The Dalles, who was in
the Hood River Saturday. Mr. Zimmerman said that track laying has proceeded
close to The Dalles, and was being pushed with a big force. There are still
some rock cuts to be made the other side of Lyle, but that will not delay the
work, as the track will be laid around bad places on the old grade, and used as
temporary track. Fourteen crews are now engaged in running construction trains
between Cliffs and Pasco, although no regular freight schedule is yet
maintained. The road is being ballasted as fast as the rails are laid, and is
ready for business.
Track laying will be started at Vancouver the first of
the month and the grade is finished as far as Cape Horn, so that trains will be
run out of Vancouver as fast as the track is laid. The road will be double
tracked at once as far as the Cape Horn tunnel, and until the road is completed
between Lyle and the big tunnel, transfers between these points will be made by
boat. It is probable that a free ferry will be put in at The Dalles and at Hood
River, to be run in connection with the passenger service, as passengers traffic
at these two places will be worth going after.
It is the intention of making the running time two
hours between the station opposite The Dalles and Portland, in which case the
road will get many passengers from the Oregon side. While the O.R. & N. is
improving its road a great deal, and will be able to reduce its running time
from, yet the North Bank will have a much
straighter track and be able to make better time, in the opinion of railroad
men, as the road has been built with that end in view from the start.
But whether the road is finished November 15 or May 1,
no one has had an opportunity to make a close inspection of the engineering
problems which have been accomplished will accuse either contractors or
engineers of loafing on the job, and the completeness and thoroughness of the
work is the admiration of the initiated and the novice as well. In fact it is
probably the only railroad that has been built in this country on which the
grade will be absolutely complete when a train schedule is put in operation over
it and which will allow a speed of 60 miles an hour from the start, if its
management sees fit to run trains at that rate, and they say they will. This is
accounted for by the fact that on the whole line there is not a curve of over
three degrees; that all projections, either on grade or overhead, that would in
any way jeopardize the safety of trains have been removed, in many instances at
an expenditure of thousands of dollars not included in the original contract;
that there is no grade on the line of over 10 feet to the mile (about 2 inches
to the hundred feet) and that the roadbed is being constructed with a solidity
that will make it an almost perfect grade from the time the rails are laid.
Running through Lyle there is a two- mile stretch that
will require considerable work in addition to a bridge which is being built over
the Klickitat river. A mile below this is one of the most expensive bits of
construction on the line. Here in a distance of a mile are four tunnels. They
have cost the new road $300,000, exclusive of the track laying, and are not
finished yet, although trains could be run through three of them if necessary.
At the west end of the stretch a steam scraper is at work removing thousands of
cubic yards of sand that for many months baffled the engineers and resulted in
the death of one man and seriously injured four more. The configuration of the
ground is of such a nature that steam shovels cannot be used, owing to the fact
that the sand crowds down on the shovel and chokes it and it is now be removed
by scraping off the top and going down to grade gradually. Workmen are at the
present concreting this series of tunnels.
All tunnels on the new road will be concreted, with the
exception of the one at Cape Horn, which is over 4000 feet long -- the longest
on the road, the rock in it being of a nature that is considered safe without
the use of concrete. The tunnels are 16 feet wide by 24 feet high and when
finished will be faced with substantial portals. At the east end of this series
of tunnels is the longest trestle on the road -- 100 feet over a mile -- and
said by contractors to have been built to stand a speed strain of 60 miles an
hour.
Opposite Memaloose Island is to be found and
uncompleted section of grade through which runs a culvert 12 feet in diameter.
It is the outlet for a creek which it is expected to use for fluming lumber down
from a timber belt back from the river. Like all the under crossings and
culverts along the new road, it is built of solid concrete, and is one of the
permanent pieces of work, not usually put in on the first construction of a
railroad. Directly below this, considerable rock work remains to be completed,
one section of which is still to be blasted out, which will require several
months’ work. It is located near what will be one of the most spectacular
points on the road, huge rocks rearing themselves alongside the grade toward the
river, affording a site similar to the Pillars of Hercules and consisting of
four instead of two great masses of stone, apparently up-ended. Below this is a
long fill, the piles for which it is evident that there is still much work.
Approaching Bingen, the grade is completed. The mountain of rock opposite
Mosier, which was blown into the river last winter, has received additional
attention since, having been cut away many feet back from the grade to prevent
ice formations from dropping on it and presents the appearance of a huge wall
hundreds of feet in height, which has been gone over by a stonecutter with a
gigantic cutting tool. Along here is said by the chief engineer of the road to
be the best finished piece of grade on the whole line of the new road. Below
this the grade is completed to the White Salmon river. The bridge of the former
remains, however, to be built. Work was completed on it early last spring, but
high water in the Columbia flooded the excavations and for the abutments, and it
is not lowered sufficiently to allow operations to be resumed. Engineers say it
that it will not, however, interfere with the running of the trains, as piling
can be driven and temporary structure made to allow of their crossing.
From Underwood to Drano, a distance of seven miles,
work is being pushed rapidly, but there are a number of uncompleted pieces of
grade, in addition to work on the four tunnels. The tunnels are bored, and are
now being concreted, and are in about the same stage of completion as those
situated on the upper end of the division near Lyle. At Drano a trestle nearly
a mile in length is ready to be finished. Work on it was only commenced
recently, and is not expected to be finished before cold weather sets in. A
bridge over the Llittle White Salmon river must also be built on this section.
Fills, small pieces of grade and gaps of various descriptions yet remain to be
connected up between Drano and the eastern end of the Cape Horn tunnel. Below
Stevenson and opposite Cascade Locks there is still considerable uncompleted
grade. Seven miles above Stevenson the bridge over Wind river is also one of
the pieces of construction that remains unfinished. It is not believed by
contractors that this long stretch of uncompleted grade from Lyle to Cape Horn
can be finished sufficiently to allow trains to be run over it by November 1.
The unusual width of the grade of the new road has been
the cause of much speculation by railroad men and others who have wondered why
so much expense was being entailed for a single track road when a narrower road
would have answered the purpose. This is now explained by the fact that it was
the original original intention to double-track the road except on bridge and in
tunnels. This order was afterward modified to double-track 20 miles out of
Kennewick and from Vancouver to the west end of the Cape Horn tunnel which will
be done as soon as the road is in operation. The great expense at which the
road road has been built from Kennewick to Portland estimated at $10,000,000, is
said to be justified when it is taken into consideration that the Portland &
Seattle will virtually be the outlet to Portland of both the Northern Pacific
and Great Northern for all through freight in addition to picking up a good big
local business from the grain country of Eastern Washington and points along the
line, which are expected to develop lumber and other industries, and the level
road, which has been built to be operated at all seasons of the year, avoiding
that heavy snow-fall and grades on the mountain divisions of the Northern
Pacific. Floods in the Columbia River have also been taken into consideration,
is evidenced by the fact that the grade of the Portland & Seattle is placed
eight feet above the high water of 1894, the highest ever known.
It is said too, it will be more economical to haul
freight for points on the Northern Pacific between Portland and Tacoma over the
new road than over the mountain division of the Northern Pacific, and that it is
expected to use it for that purpose when completed. By using the Portland &
Seattle the Northern Pacific and Great Northern through freight for Portland
will save a haul of approximately 153 miles. It will be shorter, and easier and
quicker to haul it over this route from Spokane to Tacoma then it is over for
the one in use at present from Spokane to Portland.
A comparative distance over the two routes as completed
approximately by the engineers of the Portland & Seattle is as follows:
Over Northern Pacific.
Miles
Spokane to Pasco 146
Pasco to Ellensburg 127
Ellensburg to Auburn 105½
Auburn to Tacoma 18
Tacome to Portland 145½
Total 542
Over Portland & Seattle
Miles
Spokane to Pasco 145½
Pasco to Kennewick 2½
Kennewick to Portland 241
Total 389
Spokane to Portland, Distance Saved
Via Northern Pacific 542
Via Portland & Seattle 389
Saved by Portland & Seattle
Via O.R. & N. 542
Via Portland & Seattle 389
Saved by Portland & Seattle, Distance Saved
Via Northern Pacific 542
Via Portland & Seattle 389
Saved by Portland & Seattle
Via O.R. & N. 433
Via Portland & Seattle 389
Saved by Portland & Seattle 44