Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 72, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 December 1916 — THE GREAT CASCADE TUNNEL [ARTICLE]

THE GREAT CASCADE TUNNEL

The longest railroad tunnel In the world has been designed in detail by General Henry M. Chittenden of Seattle. As described in the Engineering News, it will be thirty miles long, and will pass under the Cascade range at an elevation of 1,200 feet. Railway traffic between the Puget sound district and the interior now has to be lifted to an elevation of from 2,r,00 to 3,000 feet in crossing the range. The plans call for the use of the tunnel by the railways terminating on Puget sound,

and thus tho project is really of importance to tho whole region, rather than to one railway in particular. Tho technical problem, General Chittenden says, is by no means beyond 'the skill of American engineers. In length alone would difficulties be encountered, for new problems would have to he solved, and there would lie no precedent in the history of tunneling to follow In this respect. The tunnel would bo almost three times as long as 'the longest tunnel yet built, other long tunnels being as follows: Mont Cenis, 8 miles; St, Gothard, 9.3 miles; Arlberg, 6.5 miles; Simplon, 12.3 miles, and Loetschberg, 9 miles. As designed, tho Cascade tunnel would be as long as the aggregate length of tho three longest of the world’s most famous tunnels. Its cost would be approximately $50,000,000. The Engineering News says that tho building of such tunnels is Inevitable. Railroad managers have held back because they believed that, tho traffic was not heavy enough to justify the expense, and because the application of electricity to steam railways was until recently in the experimental stage. Until even as late as two years ago It was thought that the electric locomotive would be either too expensive or unreliable. Now it is an established institution. And the traffic to and from the Puget sound district has also Increased rapidly. It Is said that if this tunnel is a success, it will be duplicated- by other railroads at several points in the Rocky mountains.