Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1894-12-19
SNOW EIGHTY FEET DEEP.
How the Railroads Guard Against Snow
Slides in the Mountains.

l @AOw ChU ASAA1TO6uB AEAtuBC SuON
Slides In the Mountains
1t Is the custom of most of the trans
continental railroads to make an accu
rate measurement of the snowfall fol-
the winter in those places where it i!
always deepest. This is in the noun
tains, of course, and at the highest ele
vations. Although few of the roads
are bothered to any serious extent in
these days by enormous snowfalls, ow'
ing to the invention of the rotary snow
plow, they make every preparation to
meet unexpected emergencies. The
snow in the mountains begins to fall in
the middle of September on the peaks.
1t is not till October that it is observ-
able to any extent in the passes such
as the railroads use in crossing the
mountains. Before that time, however,
the plows are put in order and made
ready for use at moments notice.
Probably no road that crosses the
Cascade range has more serious strug
gle with the snow each year than the
Great Northern, the newest and fur
thest north of the American lines to
the Pacific coast. Like some other of
the through lines when first built this
road crosses the Cascade range by a
switchback system of tracks. 1t is
there that the greatest snowfall oc-
ours. From October l, 1898, to April 1,
1894, the snowfall on the Great North
ern's switchback was by actual meas
urement eighty-one feet and nine
inches. It SHOWS almost every day in
bo yir,4o fo11 8
foot in three hours. Still, delay of
more than an hour or two on account
of snow, even in the severest weather,
is unusual. Three tremendous rotary
snow plows are in constant motion
during every storm, and these keep the
tracks practically clear. One of these
plows throws the snow in the air dis
lance of sixty feet and so rapidly that
the flying snow actually makes it
dark to those who ride directly behind
the pillow. One of the engineers of the
road, who had much to do with the
switch back, said to a Sun reporter re-
Gently:
''There IS no longer any serious diff
fculty in coping with snowfalls either
in the Rockies or in the Cascades. The
chief danger is from snowslides. AS
you pass over the mountains you will
notice that here and there may be
seen enormous pathways from one
hundred to two hundred feet wide
running from the top of a peak
straight down a pass below. These
paths are as clean as if moved with
monster knife. The snow starts with
a slow glide that changes to a tremeu-
dous speed before it reaches the bot
tom, and it cuts the timber before it
clean. When it all piles up at the
bottom it is a tremendous mass of
debris. 1t would require days and
days of the most laborious work to clear
the tracks of the accumulated mass if
one of the slides should land on them.
Therefore, it is one of the engineering
problems in constructing railroad
there to build sheds where these slides
have taken place, and where there are
Indications that they will take place
again. Frequently the slides go
down the slopes, strike on
these stout sheds with force of
thousand tons, and then go on their
way down to the valleys. There is
now very little difficulty from this
source, but the precautionary work
costs the railroads many thousands OF
dollars"
On the Great Northern there are
a score of these sheds in the
Cascades They are rarely more than
one hundred and fifty feet long. They
Are buttressed with the stoutest tim
Oers that can be cut and worked in the
and the roofs are made to
slope so that they follow the grade of
the slide as far as possible. The tracks
Ire built close under the highest part
IF the roofs, so as to interfere as little
Is possible with the slope. When a
slide comes it shoots over these
rooted sheds with the ease of
! waterfall over a precipice. A train
passing through the shed at the same
line that a slide was going over would
scarcely feel the effect. There would
De tremendous roar and an earth
quake rumble, but beyond that the
passengers would scarcely know that
lnything unusual was taking place