The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1875-02-12
From the Springfield Republican,
THE HOOSAC TUNNEL OPEN.
FIRST TRAIN THROUGH
How the Passage was Nlade-Freight
Trains TO be Running SOOn-Pres.
ent Condition of The 'GUnnel-Dan.
gcrOus Work at the Central shaft.

NoRTm ADAMS, Tuesday, Feb. 8.
Very much like the informal beginning
of work upon the lIoosac tunnel has been
the unheralded running of the first loco
motive through the mountain to-day. The
RtpuJHcans Oldest readers will remember
that old ceremony, twenty-three years ago,
the past autumn, when engineers Edwards,
Richard Mum & Co,-who built the ia
nous and useless boring machine-Col.
Roger II. Leavitt of Charlemont, and
others of those old innocents, who all un-
Willingly fathercd and fostered this mighty
project, up on the mountain side near the
present eastern tunel entrance, began the
tunnel by casting out few shoyelsfull of
earth. To-day has really marked the COM
pletion of their undertaking, though Mas
sachusetts will not formally take note of
the event till the tunnel is arched and fit
ted for passenger travel till the trouble
some consolidation of the Hoosac tunnel
loo q tho ~est 10 effected, the local rail-
road repairs are all completed, and the tun-
mel in Its appliances and adjunc,s is set in
due order for the beginning of real bust
ness. None of the men who were present
at that Inauguration of the work have been
here to-day, and fancy they are all dead,
with the exception Of Col. Leavitt.
The Deerlield valley is cherries enough
at this bleak season a depressing success
sion of drifts Of icy cliffs, with the final
bringing up against the blank, white noun
tain wall the air stings and bites, to-day,
with arctic vigor, creating a genuine re-
spect for, and fellow-feeling with, the
hardy natives up ia Florida and Monroe,
who are all under the drifts, SO that loco
motion is principally by means of snow
shoes, they tell us here. What the poor
people on the mountain will do, now that
the stages have been taken off, to break
the roads through the Florida drifts
which are appallingly formidable, even for
Berkshire - to the settlements, clvili-
cation and the store-keepers, IS a problem
too profound and deeply mysterious for an
| ignorant stranger to NEEDLE with.
A few newspaper men, Consulting En-
gineer Thomas Doane, Chief Engineer
Granger of the Boston Hoosac Tunnel and
Western railroad, N. G.. Munson, the con-
tractor, Edward Rice of Boston, and others
came with us on the 1870 p. m. train from
Greenfield to the little depot at the east end
of the tunnel dinner is had at Rices ho-
| tel and then the crowd, for the little com.
pany has been sweled by the accession of
a number of North Adams people, a party
of whom have walked through the tunnel
for the cold bliss of riding back on the
First train" file over again to the station
and the unpretentious pioneer train made
up of the locomotive IN. &. Munson" with
three platform and one box freight cars
OF course every adventurous spirit In the
little settlement and in the near region, in
fact, wants to go, and the passengers
quickly count up hundred or more. En-
gineer Granger picks out a few reporters,
| Chief Engineer Frost of North Adams,
| who has ridden over the mountain this
morning, with DIR. Hawkes. and Conductor
Wright of the Pittsfeld and North Adams
railroad, Sclectman A. w. Preston, w. S.
Blackinton, etc., etc, and packs them into
the box car. On the engine, which is run
by George Cheney, are Messrs. Doane,
Munson, Granger, j. ii. and nj. r. Ed
wards, Austin Bond, +. X. Rice, etc. Mr..
| Walter Shanly is in Boston to-day.
| At three o'clock and five minutes, ex-
actly, the train moves away from the sta
ton, with no one left behind everybody
is jolly, though the half hour wait has fro
zen many ears on the open cars as we en-
ter the great borc-noing meantime that
in the construction of the track the spaces
about it have lost much of their ragged,
picturesque aspect-a group of some twenty
old miners cheer us n good-by-and then
our ride is uneventful, yet full of novelty
and spiced with the bare possibility that a
mass of rock may crush some one before
daylight is reached on the other side. Every
one processes to scout the thought of acci-
dent, yet the very suggestion, coupled it'll
a veXatious delay in lighting the lanterns,
the enhanced jolting and rumbling of the
train, all add TO the excitement and some
what forced boisterOusness of the party.
But DR.. L. s. Hawkes., seventy-six years
of age, is as genuinely glecful as a child,
though others of the old friends OF the
tunnel may have fallen by the way, he Is
proud enough of this first train to make up
for their failure to realize completion of
the tunnel il has been the one public in
terest which the old man has followed all
his litc-and in the fullness of his satisfac-
ton he bursts out as the train nears the
western portal, ''Now let us give thanks :"
The first mile is made in seven minutes,
the second in six the central shaft Is
passed without slowing or stopping then
1t is down grade to the west shaft and the
train is checked alittlc, the whistle is blown
for the opening of the temporary gates at
the western portal the air, which has
been very appreciably warmer, grows
colder, daylight glimmers ahead, and the
long looked forward to passage has been
made in thirty-ive minutes from the east
etn opening. There Is a little concourse of