Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 December 1873 — The Hoosac Tunnel. [ARTICLE]

The Hoosac Tunnel.

The dream of Massachusetts U fulfilled. For the Hoosac Mountains have Btood between the eastern and western portions of the State, in the prehistoric time probably affording a safe retreat for wild beasts when pursued bythe scarcely less wild prehistoric man, and in later times erecting its rocky and rugged front as an effectual barrier to the efforts of commerce and enterprise to construct railways and lines of communication from the East to the West. Boston has a capacious harbor, and is also hundreds of miles nearer to European ports than her rivals, and ought therefore to be the great entrepot for foreign trade and the point of export for the granaries of the West. But all these material advantages went for nought so long as the Hoosac Mountain reared its hoary head above the valleys of the Hoosac and the Deerfield. Now that barrier which could not be removed has been pierced, and daylight now shines through the base of the hoary monster, and shortly the passage will be resonant with the clang of the laden car and the shriek of .the locomotive, and Boston .will enter upon a new career of commercial prosperity. Heretofore, though boasting the best harbor in the country, she has been almost as isolated as if site were an inland city. She has not gained this new avenue of communication by any' lottery. She has done it by sheer hard labor, and through a host of discouragements and vexations which would have paralyzed a faint-er-hearted commonwealth. The engineering difficulties have been great, and courage, skill, and a dogged perseverance have been necessary to overcome them, but if these had been the only difficulties to overcome, the work of making the tunnel would have been a recreation. To make people believe in its feasibility and give their voice, influence, and money toward the project was a harder task than to bore the hole itself. In fact there were several large mountains to be bored through before the Hoosac could be even approached. There were the financial and legislative problems, and after these were solved, the melancholy doubt, whether, after the hole was put through the mountain, it would really he worth the time, trouble and expense it had cost would often be thrown in the faces of the legislature and those favoring its construction. This was more than twentyfive years ago. The first idea of tunneling under the Hoosac Mountain dates back, however, some thirty years before. It was proposed about that time to make a canal from Boston to the Hudson River by way of the Deerfield and Hoosac Rivers. And the Board of Commissioners appointed in 1826 to examine the project with a very intrepid judgment advised the cutting of a tunnel through the mountain. In 1848 a railroad company undertook the work, but it met with obstacles at every step, and was finally compelled to abandon it. Thus fourteen years were spent in controversies and quarrels, when the State, in 1862, decided to take the matter into its own hands. Under recommendations of commissioners the work was put under contract. It was at first parceled out for a short time to two or three parties, but on the 24th of December, 1868, a contract for the whole work was made with Messrs. Walter and Francis Shanley, of Canada, who agreed to complete the tunnel by the Ist of March, 1874, for the sum of $4,594,265. Under this contract the work has been vigorously and successfully prosecuted. Tho whole length of the tunnel is 25,031 feet, or four and three-quarter miles. It is 20 feet wide by a height varying from 23 to 26 feet, wherever a brick arch is used. Massing through solid rock excavation the section is reduced to 24 wide by 20 high. The tunnel grade is 26 feet to the mile for nearly the whole distance, rising from each portal toward the central shaft, and leaving a short length of level immediately under the shaft. This dip in the grade each way from the center was made to secure good drainage. The tunnel has two shafts, one near the west end, only 318 feet deep, aud the other, or central shift, nearly in the middle of the tunnel. This is 1,028 feet in depth. The ceutral shaft was sunk for two purposes, first, to secure two facings, one east and one west, and thus expedite the work, and, secondly, to afford ventilation for the tunnel. It is matter of great doubt whether the tunnel, constructed as it is with a grade from each portal to the center, would ventilate Itself at all. Since this shaft was built, and connection made with the cast end, a strong draft is obtained from it, and the tunnel is readily cleared from smoke and gases. The central shaft is an ellipse 27 feet long by 15 feet wide. Its position was established by a series of secondary observations, the instrument being placed alternately on each side of the the position transited until'exactly determined between the two principal tunnel summits. The Hoosac Mountain has two summits, with a wide valley between them. The eastern summit is 6,100 feet from the cast portal of the tunnel, and 1,415 feet above the grade of the road; and the western summit 6,700 feet from the western portal, and 1,704 feet above the grade. The summits are 2 40-100 miles distant from each other, and the valley between, at its greatest depression, is 801 feet above grade. A part of the line over the tunnel is covered with forests, and in some places the depth of earth , over the rock Is quite considerable. *