Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1914-03-30
.SiSkiyOu Survey
Again Revived

Attorney w. f. Coburn of Yreka
was in Ashland Monday on legal bust
ness and confirms the reports eXten
sively written about in the Northern
California newspapers, especially the
Sacramento papers, concerning the
re-engineering of the Southern Pa
cific line between Edgewood and Ash
land and perhaps as far south as Red
ding. Railroad engineers have gone
over the surveys between Ashland and
Edgewood and made careful notes on
the old surveys of Engineer Montague
Tor the California and Oregon and En-
gineer John Hurlburt for the Oregon
and California.
This event took place about the
time General Manager E. E. Calvin
made the announcement in Portland
that the company were talking Of re-
engineering the Siskiyous following
the announcement that the estimates
on the NatronWeed route across the
Cascades precluded the possibility of
tunneling that mountain barrier.
Attorney Coburn says that d. w.
Campbell, general manager of the
Southern Pacific lines in Oregon and
Northern California, visited Yreka at
that time and gave the country good
looking over. Mr.. Coburn says the
old Montague survey lessened the
distance between ashland and Red
ding sixteen miles.
The Engineer Montague survey
goes by way of Yreka and down
Shasta river and comes over the Siski-
you mountains on grade that es-
capes Bailey hill and on the north
side takes the general route that the
Jackson county highway now goes. 1t
made only two tunnels through the
Siskiyous, the present long tunnel at
Siskiyou and old Buck Rock tunnel
The engineering on the Oregon side
of the line was under Chief Engineer
| John Hurlburt, and ]. s. Howard.
now of Medford, did much of the
4 work upon which the estimates were
made.
| On account of the financial affairs
. OF the Oregon end being involved in
!. the failure of Henry Willard, con-
= struction work on both ends was
3 brought to a close in 1884 with the
i Oregon terminus at Ashland and the
I. California terminus at Delta. sixteen
miles north of Redding.
When construction work was TAX
en- up the California end under Chief
i Engineer Hood dominated the en-
gineering of the enterprise that COM
pleted the gap. The change of sur
yeys was made under Hood. The
Hood -urvey cut out Buck Rock tun-
mel entlreiy, though 1t was two-thirds
completed. The route over the noun
tain was changed so that Siskiyou
tunnel was the only tunnel work
used and the present loop route drove
several small tunnels and made nee
= essary the Bailey hill climb to get
down the mountain on the south side.
The maximum grades through the
Siskiyous reach 1856 and Mr.. Howard
says the old Observation-Disclosures en-
', gineering crossed the mountain at
less than two per cent as we'll as
made much shorter mileage.
| Though the Hood engineering was
/. extensively criticised at the time and
l has been remarked about by en-
= gineers ever since, 1t must also be
= remembered that conditions have
y changed wonderfully since the old
0 days Of Stanford and Huntington and
Crocker and Hopkins. The business
D methods of the world have been rev.
!, olutlonized and many factors outside
of the matter of finances probably
played their part. II was generally
- understood that the future would
bring engineering and In the years
that have ensued the Southern Pa
: ciflc has had preliminary reconnois-
y ance surveys made for the purpose
OF arriving at the probable cost OF
one large tunnel. AS far as the pub
, lie knew no serious effort at fjnanc'
;, ing the large five-mile tunnel wai
ever undertaken.