The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-03-29

yons and through passes hitherto con-
sidered inaccessible. Where there is
no open pass through the mountains,
the engineers have not hesitated to
bore long tunnels through the noun
tains rather than to increase the grade
and the distance by going over the
mountains or making wide detours.
Within another year. it is announced,
the Western Pacific will be entirely
completed. The western terminal Of
the line constructed to date is twelve
miles west of Bews, New, and the
grade for the line is almost entirely
completed.
One of the most important engineer
ing feats on the entire line is the bOr-
ing of the Flower lake tunnel on the
Salt Lake division, $50 miles west of
Salt Lake This TUNED is SAP feet
long. and offers one of the most diff
cult engineering problems on the entire
line. The work on this tunnel is near
ing completion, and will be finished in
June. This done, the completion of the
line from Salt Lake to Elko will be a
simple matter and. if the work is
pushed, the line win be completed into
Elko by fall As soon as this stretch
of road is finished. regular trains viii
undoubtedly be operated from Salt
Lake to EikO
The tunnels in the Western Pacific.
and there are approximately fifty i'm
pOrtant tunnels, are all uniform i'm con-
struction, seventeen feet in width be-
tween the vertical sides Of the tunnel
and twenty-five and a half feet in
height. making the normal cross sec
ton of the tunnel 1854 square feet. The
immensely of the undertaking I'm con-
structing one of these tunnels may be
understood when II is known that to
bore the Flower lake tunnel 1,193, 7S0.S
cubic feet of solid rock must be re-
moved, and to build the Spring Gar
den tunnel i'm the western slope of the
SieTras i'm California, there must be
taken out 2,726, $50 cubic feet of earth
and rock. The Spring Garden tunnel
is the longest tunnel on the new line.
1t is 400 feet in length.
Another tunnel of great importance
on the Western Pacific is the Chilkoot
tunnel. through the famous Beckwith
pass on the Nevada California line.
This tunnel is 5000 feet long, piercing
the Sierras at one of the most hazard
GUS points. The Beckwith pass was
Travelled in the early days by the gold
seekers. but of late years has been con-
sidered inaccessible. 1t was necessary
to go through the Beckwith pass 10
| this reason the Chilkoot tunnel was de-
cided upon.
! Some of the most unexpected and Sc
4 rious problems in railroad construction
encountered by the engineers of the
Western Pacific were presented by the
/ treacherous mountain torrents of the
Sierra Nevada. These torrents are con-
stantly finding new channels and rush
/ ing down the mountain sides with ter
/ rife force at unexpected times of the
year.
/ The floods of this section of the coun-
/ try a year ago were. the most serious
of any since white man had been in the
region. The high water mark on the
sides of the mountains was raised two
/ feet. This impressed the engineers
with the necessity of making the road
bed as stable as possible. For this rea-
son the idea of having wooden trestles
was abandoned, and concrete was used
exclusively. The high water mark es-
tablished last March was taken as q
standard, and the roadbed so construct
that the floods will have to be much
more violent than they have been here.
tCfore to affect the roadbed. All cul-
verts are being so built as to discharg,
water under any head that could arts,