Hiking the long tunnel at Snoqualmie Pass
The old Milwaukee Road tunnel under Snoqualmie Pass, thought to be closed for good, reopens on July 5 to hikers. It's the longest railway tunnel in the country that is a recreational trail. Here's a preview, as well as a review of railroad and cross-Cascades lore.
Doug MacDonald
It was a sad day for mountain bikers, horseback rider, hikers, and Northwest railroad history buffs in January 2009 when Washington State Parks announced the closure of the old Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific railroad tunnel under Snoqualmie Pass. Closure came for fear that the torrents of water leaking through its roof presaged safety risks from falling slabs of overhead concrete liner.
Unused for railroading since 1980, State Parks acquired the tunnel in 1989 and it had become the star attraction of the Iron Horse State Park Trail that stretches 110 continuous miles mostly along old railroad right-of-way from Vantage on the Columbia River to North Bend. News reports suggested that millions of dollars would be required for repairs and there was no light at the end...oh, you get the idea!
Seemingly by a miracle, the tunnel will re-open to recreational users on Tuesday, July 5. It’s a cause for celebration. I took a preview tour earlier this week, and learned that the tunnel is in fine fettle. Virtually dry. Dark, of course (those glitzy LED headlamps are just the thing)! Pretty cool, meaning that the in-mountain temperature under as much as 1,400 feet of mountain directly overhead is around 35 degrees even on a warm summer day. Unique views: namely no views at all inside except the imprints of the plank forms used decades ago when the concrete lining was placed, and the modern communications cable strung high along the tunnel wall that carries Qwest/CenturyLink through the mountain. Those cables are a reminder that even as recreational users trek through, soon the tunnel will enter its second century of service as a vital link across the Cascade Range.
But, for glorious views, just outside the west portal, 2.25 miles from where the tunnel begins at Hyak, there are stunning vistas of the valley of the South Fork of the Snoqualmie River where I-90, 300 feet below, sends up the roar of traffic climbing its way toward the top of the pass.
State Parks pursued the recovery of the tunnel with the assistance of geotechnical consultants who found its problems mostly located near its two portals where streams overflowing the structure had seeped behind the concrete lining, rotted out old timber lagging, and with the assistance of seasonal freeze-thaw cycles had attacked the integrity of the liner. According to Jim Miller, the consultant from GeoEngineers in Seattle and one of the tour companions for my visit, otherwise most of the tunnel was in “remarkably good shape.”
The repair contract was won by LRL Construction Co., a Tillamook Oregon contractor that specializes in tunnel reconstruction and repair and carried out at a cost of $672,000 about $50,000 of which comes back to the state as sales tax. With all the engineering and other costs included, the total project price tag was about $900,000. The credits for that kind of Academy Award results include State Parks employees in Wenatchee, capital projects director, Christine Parsons, and project engineer Tony Rapoza.
When one values the return on public spending on historic preservation projects — of which old buildings, not old tunnels, seem to garner most prominent attention — it is noteworthy that in the tourist season before its closure, Ranger Tim Schmidt from State Parks estimates 250,000 people enjoyed one or another portion of the Iron Horse Trail, and 80 percent of them went into or through the tunnel. He is confident that the numbers, now that the tunnel is reopened, will be that high or higher in the future.
At 11,888 feet in length, it’s the longest railway tunnel in America that has been repurposed to a recreational trail, fully 25 percent longer than the equally justly celebrated Taft Tunnel on the Hiawatha Trail in Idaho, also a rails-to-trails conversion from the old Milwaukee Road. Since the re-opening was rumored and then announced, State Parks has been fielding enthusiastic inquiries from around the country about the renewed opportunity to enjoy the Snoqualmie Tunnel.
Of course, where there’s a railroad tunnel there’s always railroad history. For example, there’s the story of the Hoosac Tunnel for the Troy and Greenfield Railroad in western Massachusetts, remembered today wherever modern tunnel boring machines, as in Seattle today, capture public imagination. The first tunnel boring machine, 100 tons of cast iron parts shipped in 1853 from South Boston to the tunnel site in horse-drawn wagons, ground ten feet into the rock, froze in place, and never moved again. It took 20 years, largely caused by political machinations, to finish the job, first by resort to the old techniques of hand-hammered steel drills and black powder, and ultimately with pneumatic drills and nitroglycerin, the initial large-scale application of the new blasting technology.
Meanwhile, tunnel boring machines, like a lot of technology, have come a long way since 1853. Politics, maybe not so far. Anyway, the Hoosac Tunnel still carries rail freight today.
Railroading at Snoqualmie Pass got a late start and then an accelerted construction program. Two railroad lines through the Cascades to Puget Sound preceded the Milwaukee Road. The Northern Pacific at Stampede Pass first opened its line in 1887 and completed its tunnel in 1888. The Great Northern followed, opening service over Stevens Pass in 1893 and completing its first (now superseded) tunnel in 1900. In 1906, with its furthest west point then at the Missouri River in central North Dakota, the Milwaukee Road began construction of its link with Puget Sound. It began passenger service to Seattle just two years later in August 1909.
The Milwaukee Road first laid rails for the last few miles from the east over Snoqualmie Pass by pioneering what today is now the short State Highway 906 now relegated to connecting ski areas and businesses ever since the widened I-90 over the pass was completed. An old cross-Cascades Indian trail generally preceded that rail route. The first recorded crossing of Snoqualmie Pass by a party of whites in 1854, coming from the west, reconnoitered roughly the same route near the pass to locate defenses against feared raids on the west from the Indian conflicts then enmeshing eastern parts of the Washington Territory.
The first wagon track pushed across the pass to and from a barge landing at the head of Lake Keechelus in 1865. Seattleites proposed a toll road to pay for improvements in 1869, but the wagon road was so damaged by runoff in 1869-70 that it was rendered impassable for ten years. In 1883 it came the turn of Kitttitas County farmers, eager to get agricultural produce to Puget Sound markets, to propose a toll road.
When it eventually opened to North Bend, according to Yvonne Prater’s Snoqualmie Pass from Wagon Trail to Interstate (1981), the toll in 1884 was $4 dollars for a wagon and four horses, $1 for a man on horseback and 50 cents for a packhorse. But once the Northern Pacific began train service a few years later at Stampede Pass, freight diverted to the new route and toll revenues dried up.
The first two automobiles somehow struggled over the deteriorating wagon road in 1905. By 1909 the Milwaukee construction had reached the summit to what it then called the Laconia Depot. The next automobile crossing the Pass then came on a railroad flatcar as far as Laconia from Ellensburg. Though today the highway reigns, wonderful layouts and old photos of Laconia show nothing but rail and depot in a landscape where all the vistas will be familiar and recognizable to today’s Snoqualmie Pass denizens.
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Comments:
Posted Fri, Jul 1, 8:25 a.m. Inappropriate
BRAVO, WA PARKS! You really came through in difficult times. I'm so pleased the uniqueness of the tunnel and the trail was appreciated.
Posted Fri, Jul 1, 9:47 a.m. Inappropriate
This is phenomenal. I've never been there but would love to. The historic part is interesting and worth preserving. I'm mostly excited about the transportation/recreation connection.
Posted Fri, Jul 1, 10:14 a.m. Inappropriate
This tunnel used to be open to Mt Bikes as well, has that changed?
Posted Fri, Jul 1, 1:33 p.m. Inappropriate
Terrific story Doug. I love the link to Craig Magnuson's "History of Laconia". Cle Elum to Seattle by rail in 1912: 4 hours.
Posted Fri, Jul 1, 9:43 p.m. Inappropriate
Great story. Y'all know that putting rails back down on the "Iron Horse Trail," and some others too, may make a lot of sense to people in the future. Meanwhile, it is a wonderful trail. The tunnel is open to mtn. bikes.
The gradient on the west side seems just right for biking, steep enough to get a workout going up, but not so steep as to preclude one going down either. What percent grade is it?
Posted Sat, Jul 2, 9:34 a.m. Inappropriate
Milwaukee Road Snoqualmie Pass is the best railroad route over the cascades. I have worked freight trains over Stevens, Stampede and Snoqualmie. The following is from my Milwaukee Road website:
Cascade Range Summit Railroad Tunnels Compared
Stampede Pass Tunnel (2 miles) - Built by the Northern Pacific Railroad in the late nineteenth century, this tunnel was the first to be constructed. The eastbound and westbound grades are 2.2% compensated with the summit break inside the tunnel, not a happy situation for train handling. The low ceiling puts a crimp on traffic flow. Milwaukee Road detours I worked through this tunnel were devoid of our usual profitable auto transport business. The one Burlington Northern train I worked over this route, Train 175-6 (Auburn to Yakima), hauled mostly forest products and grain; the more valuable merchandise and auto traffic was sent via Steven's Pass.
Stampede Pass was closed in the early 1980's as redundant.
Snoqualmie Pass Tunnel (2 miles) - Built by the Milwaukee Road soon after the opening of the Pacific Extension in 1914, this tunnel sits at the top of the 20 mile 1.74% compensated eastbound grade from Cedar Falls (Rattlesnake Lake) up to Rockdale at the tunnel's west portal. The tunnel is level inside, and is level into Hyak at the east portal. The westbound grade from Cle Elum up to Hyak is an easy .7% compensated. There were no unusual train handling problems in the tunnel. With helpers, or lo-control ("slaves") cut into the length of an eastward train, the engineer typically throttled back head end power as the train entered the tunnel and regained level ground. By the east portal, the slaves (out of radio control in the tunnel) would be doing the bulk of the work. In the 1960's, with its continuing tradition of innovation ("America's Reso! urceful Railroad"), the Milwaukee Road completed the task of lowering the floors of all of its mainline tunnels in order to compete for tri-level auto rack traffic. While modern container trains would be right at home in Snoqualmie Tunnel, bicycle traffic clears the ceiling with room to spare! Burlington Northern acquired the Snoqualmie Pass route when the Milwaukee Road abandoned Lines West in 1980. Management under new Board Chairman Richard Bressler, formerly CEO of Atlantic Richfield Co., was focused on Wyoming Powder River coal hauling business, on Burlington Resources Co. (oil), on Plum Creek Co. (timber), on Glacier Park Co. (real estate), on anything other than strategic long range thinking about transcontinental rail freight traffic. Thus the State of Washington was offered the best railroad route through the Cascade Range for conversion to the misnamed "John Wayne Trail."
Steven's Pass Tunnel (7.9 miles) - The Cascade Tunnel was opened by the Great Northern Railway in 1929 and is considered one of world's great railway engineering feats. It reduced the climb over Steven's Pass and removed the avalanche danger of the former route. The damage to Great Northern's reputation from the Wellington snow slide disaster has been cited as an important factor in the decision to build the Cascade Tunnel. One can't help but wonder if the press of competition from the Milwaukee Road's better route was also a consideration.
John Crosby
Fremont
Posted Sat, Jul 2, 9:40 a.m. Inappropriate
Steven's Pass Tunnel continued:
The 12.8 mile eastbound grade from Skykomish to the west portal at Scenic is 2.2% compensated. The 7.9 mile eastbound grade in the tunnel is 1.7%. The summit is at the tunnel's east portal, just west of Berne. The 7 mile westbound grade from Merritt to Berne is 2.2% compensated. At the east portal are two gigantic fans which provide westward ventilation. The fans are inside automatic tunnel doors which remain closed until a train enters the CTC block circuitry on the doors' approach. For eastward trains in the tunnel, this means the doors remain closed until the train approaches the east portal.
In my time at Burlington Northern, I came to dread the donning of respirators that signaled the start of our almost one hour adventure on the uphill eastward grade through the 7.9 mile mountain bore. On two occasions my train fell victim to tunnel induced locomotive overheating as each our four head end locomotives shut down in turn. This required backing out of the tunnel to Scenic.
Over the years, the railroad has been subject of millions in employee lawsuits over chronic, and sometimes fatal, health problems endemic to inhalation of the intense diesel exhaust in the tunnel. While the tunnel is lined with 21 oxygen equipped emergency "bays" marked from the westend by art deco numbered lights (the first seven or so bays also have escape exits to the old construction tunnel), the Company was late in providing respirators for train crews. On board emergency oxygen was not added until 1980.
The requirement that eastbounds wait 45 minutes at Scenic for a tunnel "flush" after westbound meets, puts a severe crimp into the capacity of the road. In recent years, traffic congestion over Steven's Pass forced Burlington Northern Santa Fe to reopen the Stampede Pass route. Meanwhile Iron Horse/Pioneer/John Wayne Trail (Olympian Hiawatha Trail) bicycles roll majestically over the best engineered railroad route through the Cascades.
John Crosby
Fremont
Posted Sat, Jul 2, 6:20 p.m. Inappropriate
Thanks, John Crosby. I well remember teenaged journeys east from Everett to Wenatchee through the Stevens Pass tunnel back when there were still open boxcars on almost every train, and friendly employees who rather enjoyed having the occasional "passenger." I also remember staggering to the door upon exiting the tunnel gasping for dear life (we had no respirators,) along with the diesel soot that penetrated every pore. You've never been dirty till you've ridden freight trains. I think I did it three times before wising up.
Curious if you can tell us what "compensated" grade means?
Thanks.
Posted Sat, Jul 2, 9:13 p.m. Inappropriate
Two aspects of track structure slow trains: grades and curves. Compensated means that the curves are level. The Milwaukee was the last transcontinental railroad constructed and therefore the best engineered and from many angles, had the best route. Snoqualmie Pass is the best railroad route over the Cascades and could be restored to service under a variety of realignments. There appears to be no or little institutional memory of this. The Ron Simms swap of the Burlington Northern Seventh Sub through Bellevue from the Port of Seattle for Boeing Field with the B.N. ultimately getting ninety million to upgrade Stampede is just plain stupid. The B.N. should operate the Milwaukee Road route and King County should reflect on the fact the much more impressive Burke-Gilman Trail was acquired from the same outfit for a dollar. And the worth of Boeing Field? Is there anyone in King County Government or at the Port of Seattle that possesses a brain?
John Crosby
Fremont
Posted Sun, Jul 3, midnight Inappropriate
You can add putting the "Brightwater" sewage plant in Woodinville rather than on the shore at Point Wells to that list of lunacies.
If and when oil gets expensive (probably not much "if" there,) we'll see minds concentrated to where the Milwaukee grade and many others may be rebuilt for trains, if we can still afford to do so. We'd lose a great bike trail, but there won't be many cars left on I-90.
Posted Sun, Jul 3, 4:07 p.m. Inappropriate
".. there’s the story of the Hoosac Tunnel for the Troy and Greenfield Railroad in western Massachusetts, remembered today wherever modern tunnel boring machines, as in Seattle today, capture public imagination. The first tunnel boring machine, 100 tons of cast iron parts shipped in 1853 from South Boston to the tunnel site in horse-drawn wagons, ground ten feet into the rock, froze in place, and never moved again. It took 20 years, largely caused by political machinations, to finish the job."
One reason institutional (political) memory is so poor, is that there are so few people like Doug who bother explaining past efforts to all the rest of us. Also lost to general knowledge (until recently) is NYC's prototype pneumatic subway secretly built by the owner of Scientific American under a department store and the nose of Boss Tweed and friends pushing elevated. Completed in 58 days, the 300 feet block long demonstration operated successfully from 1870 to 1873, when the 1873 panic wiped out the chief investor.
Quick check here: http://www.nycsubway.org/articles/beach.html
Politics here: Secret Subway: the fascinating tale of a remarkable feat..., Martin Sandler, 2009, National Geographic (disguised as a children's book, but far more). SPL's six copies—all available.
Posted Tue, Jul 5, 10:16 a.m. Inappropriate
I wonder if there has ever been a survey done for radon gas in the tunnel? It might not be such a healthy place to go.
Posted Thu, Jul 7, 9:08 a.m. Inappropriate
This is very good news! My wife and I love to ride our tandem mountain bike up the John Wayne Trail from Rattlesnake Lake and through the tunnel.
It would seem to be a gross exaggeration that there were "torrents of water leaking through its roof". We have been through the tunnel many times up until shortly before it was closed and never observed "torrents" of water coming from the roof. The wettest spots always seemed to be near the entrances seemingly related to snow melt. We have always been surprised at how dry the interior was. One would think that there would be some type of spring water coming through the rocks in the interior.
"the in-mountain temperature under as much as 1,400 feet of mountain directly overhead is around 35 degrees even on a warm summer day." This is simply a misquote which unfortunately causes people familiar with the tunnel to wonder about what else the author got wrong. On an unusually hot summer day it could be up to 35 degrees cooler in the tunnel than it is outside. I have never taken a thermometer with us, but I would guess that the temperature is typically in the fifties in the tunnel during the summer. There is often a pretty good breeze from West to East.
Many people are unaware that it is only a few miles from Rattlesnake Lake from the end of the Cedar River Rails to Trails Path at Landsburg. The rail right of way is blocked off where it goes through the Seattle Watershed. It is in very good shape and would need no renovation for use by walkers and cyclists. This is arguably the most beautiful portion of the entire rail right of way, and can be seen in detail using Google Earth and Google Maps.
The only real disadvantage would be that the Seattle Water Department would have to share the right of way which is currently used as their private "shortcut" to the facilities at Rattlesnake Lake and the other dams and reservoirs nearby. Unfortunately there are plenty of overpaid unproductive Seattle Water employees who are jealously guarding their personal little slice of heaven.
There is no evidence that allowing this type of access to cyclists and walkers would pose more than a miniscule threat to the watershed. If this portion of the trail were opened... the trail would extend from Lake Washington all the way through the tunnel and beyond. This could be a big feather in King County's cap. John Wayne Trail advocates across the country could boast that the trail extended all the way to Seattle and the Puget Sound. With the state tourism department recently being closed this type of asset should not be wasted any longer.
Posted Thu, Jul 7, 9:18 a.m. Inappropriate
Typo, it is only a few miles to Rattlesnake Lake from the end of the Cedar River Rails to Trails Path at Landsberg. The rail right of way through the Seattle Watershed is the shortest and most appropriate route for the John Wayne Trail. Currently this great trail ends in the middle of nowhere... when at virtually no expense it could now be extended to Seattle and the Puget Sound. It is an incredible waste that this asset is being squandered.
Posted Thu, Jul 7, 10:54 a.m. Inappropriate
Herb said, "I wonder if there has ever been a survey done for radon gas in the tunnel? It might not be such a healthy place to go."
You bring up an interesting point however... There is normally a pretty good breeze through the tunnel because of prevailing winds and the difference in atmospheric pressure as you go from the Western side of the mountains to the Eastern side. So unlike the conditions in most mines there is good natural ventilation. I actually have access to highly sensitive radiation detectors and will try to bring one along soon for a few giggles. In my opinion, the dangers from radon in the tunnel are probably minimal.
Posted Tue, Jul 12, 12:16 p.m. Inappropriate
My wife and I rode up to the tunnel yesterday. The first suprise is that you now need to pay $10 for parking or buy a "Discover Pass" which is advertised on the signs at the park as costing $30 but actually costs $35. We parked at the Twin Falls Trail Head in Olallie State Park and pushed the tandem bike up the hill to the John Wayne trail.
It is 14 miles from the Twin Falls Trailhead to the tunnel and it took us about an hour and a half to ride up the gentle grade. The trail was in good repair and a very nice ride. There are several new outhouses that were all clean and in good repair.
The surface of the trail was improved inside the tunnel. The work that was visible to us on the tunnel itself was all in the last few hundred feet on the East side. Several inches of concrete was sprayed on the walls and ceiling of the tunnel which did make this portion of the ride drier. Still even with fenders you still will get some mud on your legs and shoes. There used to be a few spots in the ceiling with water running out of them like a garden hose that is mostly closed. Now there are some spots with steady drips. $900,000 seems like a steep price to pay for this small improvement. I am very skeptical that there was more than even a very small structral threat to the tunnel. I worry more that after twenty years or so the spray concrete will start falling of the ceiling and creating an actual hazard.
Heading up to the tunnel was a bit of a spur of the moment decision, so I did not bring a radiation detector or a thermometer with us. It was cool for July 11 around sixty degrees F. The temperature inside the tunnel was in the fifties. We both dawned a jacket before entering. Even in shorts we stayed very comfortable. There was a good breeze from west to east as is usual.
The real challenge in our 35 mile round trip ride was the several miles from the East side of the tunnel to the top of the pass. It is pretty steep in some places. The first five miles going down I-90 from the top of the pass is exciting. From there it is a steady downhill grade almost all the way back to the Twin Falls Trail head parking area.
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