The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1928-02-27
OPEN MOFFAT
BORE, BIGGEST
RAIL TUNNEL
UndeveIoped Colorado EN-
pire Aided; First Trains
Go Through Sunday.
BY H. G. THOMPSON
United Press staff Correspondent

DENVER, Colo, Feb. 27.-Railroad
history was made Sunday when the
first passenger train, piercing the
very heart of the Rock mountains,
passed through the New Moffat tun-
mel, the largest railroad tunnel in
the world.
While the immediate effect of the
Inauguration of the new service was
to open the undeveloped empire of
northwestern Colorado, it pointed
the way toward saving of time and
distance in transcontitnental rail-
road travel.
The completion of the Moffat
bore, hailed as the greatest engineer
ing triumph since the building of
the Panama. Canal, was the realiza-
ton of a vision that has survived
twenty-siX years of struggle and fire.
Quent disappointment.
Cost Lives of Twenty Six Men
Twenty-Five hundred persons were
aboard the special trains that pulled
out of Denver, wound up over the
snowy slopes of the Continental
Divide and paused before the east
portal of the tunnel for the dedica-
tory rites.
After the ceremonies, the cars
were coupled in two sections and
whisked through Americas longest
railroad tunnel.
The Moffat tunnel has cost SIS
100000 in money and the lives of
twenty-six men who died in the
hazardous work Of pounding their
way through the backbone Of James
Peak. The bore is 62 miles long.
More than four years were required
to complete the work.
David H. Moffat, stage runner
and general merchandise dealer,
built fortune in the West through
mining, banking and railroading. He
looked ahead and saw the Rocky
Mountains conquered by man and
talked of a shorter transcontinental
railroad that would link Chicago
and the West coast.
Saves 20 Miles of Track
That was when the century was
young. At the time Of Moffatt's death
in 1911. 200 miles of his road had
been built.
Denver voted bonds for the tun-
mel, but they were declared uncon-
stitutional and it was not until 1922
that the Legislature finally approved
the tunnel measure.
The old route of the Denver Il
Salt Lake Railroad went over James
Peak and was blocked by SHOWS
much of the winter. The new route
through the tunnel saves twenty
miles of track and the climbing or
2,406 feet of precipitous grades.
At present the Moffatt Railroad
runs only to Craig, Colo, instead
of to Salt Lake City, as the name
implies. Northwestern Colorado Is
rich in minerals and agriculture,
and its territory is open to all-year
traffic with Denver and the east
ern slope of the mountains.
Plans for Future Use
But included in the plans for fu-
ture usefulness of the Moffat Tun-
mel is the hope of the taxpayers
who financed its construction that
some transcontinental line will util-
ize it for travel between Kansas City
or Chicago and points on the Pa
cific.
The tunnel has been leased for
twenty years by the Denver &
Salt Lake Railroad, which may ex-
tend its rails to Salt Lake City.
Another possibility is that the
Denver and Rio Grande Western
may utilize the tunnel through a
so-called Dotsero cutoff, which
would link it's lines with the Moffat
tunnel route, shorten the distance
to the west coast and create a
new transcontinental route.