Colorado Midland Railway - A Short History

Page 6

The tunnel was designed for single track operation and was to be 15 feet wide and 21 feet high. First to be drilled was the heading, which was 7 feet tall and the full width of the tunnel. This was then followed by the bench. The gray granite of the Sawatch Range had been found hard and firm in the old Hagerman Tunnel, and it was supposed that it would be the same in the Busk-Ivanhoe . Such was not the case and in order to protect the tunnelmen, it was found necessary to timber the breast of the working. In addition, the tunnel builders encountered very large cavities in the rock filled with liquid mud which rushed out and tried to bury the tunnelmen when the cavity was breached. Last but not least, water was always present.

By mid-July, 1893, 8,473 feet of tunnel had been completed, 4,660 feet on the Busk end and 3,813 at the Ivanhoe end. Then Keefe tore up his contract. Three years of hard, frustrating work at two miles above sea level, combined with the severe weather conditions of the Hagerman Pass country, had seriously affected his health. It seems likely, also, that Keefe had lost financially on the Busk-Ivanhoe Tunnel contract.

Since only 921 feet of the tunnel remained to excavate, the Busk Tunnel Railway Company took over the work. Arrangements were made with Keefe & Company for the use of his work force and machinery. The climax of this three-year tunnel building drama came on Wednesday October 18, 1893, when after 38 months of hard, grueling, dangerous labor, the tunnel headings came together.

Two additional months were spent in applying the finishing touches to the big tunnel, laying of track along the 2.9 mile relocation, and installation of a signal system. On December 17, 1893, trains began running through the bore under terms of the 999-year contract negotiated in 1890.

The Busk Tunnel Railway's 1.78 mile tunnel saved the Colorado Midland $70,000 annually in maintenance of the old loop line. In addition, use of the Busk-Ivanhoe tunnel made possible large savings in the costs of running trains.

	Tunnel Line	Loop Line	Savings
Distance	2.9 mi.	9.83 mi.	6.9 mi.
Maximum elevation	10,953.19 ft.	11,528.31 ft.	575.12 ft.
Rise and fall	157 ft.	1,307 ft.	1,150 ft.
Degrees of curvature	141 deg.	2,099 deg.	1,958 deg.

It had been felt that since the west portal was 133 feet higher than the east portal, the tunnel would be a natural chimney. Sometimes this was the case, and the tunnel would be free of smoke and gas from 40 minutes to an hour after a westbound train entered the bore at Busk station. The traffic flow often made it necessary for eastbound or westbound trains to enter the tunnel before sufficient time had elapsed for the tunnel to clear. Strong west winds or storms at Ivanhoe often prevented smoke and gas from escaping from the tunnel, making the bore's interior an inferno.

The Midland attempted to overcome the problem by burning coke on the locomotives of all westbound trains between Busk and Ivanhoe. This did not prove to be a cure-all and the coke burning experiment was abandoned. Instead, when westbound trains stopped at Busk, the fireman burned a good level bed of coal under the forced draft of blowers. As soon as all engines had a heavy bed of smoke-free fire, the train passed through the tunnel.

One Busk-Ivanhoe Tunnel problem that the Midland men did not have to worry about was collisions between trains. The Busk Tunnel Railway was protected for most of its length by staff signal instruments. Midland operating rules stated that only one train could occupy the block section between Busk and Ivanhoe stations. The engineer of any train within this block had to carry a staff or token withdrawn from the staff signal instrument located inside the Busk and Ivanhoe station buildings. The two staff instruments were electrically interlocked, and withdrawal of a staff from either automatically locked both so that withdrawal of further staffs was impossible. The machines remained locked until train reached the station at the opposite end of the block, and the staff carried by the engineer was inserted in the instrument at that station.

Although operations over the old loop line were entirely suspended by January, 1894, all trackage and other facilities were left intact as insurance against possible rock falls, mud slides or similar difficulties within the Busk-Ivanhoe Tunnel.


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