Stampede Tunnel

Kurt Moose Jul 3, 2006

  1. YoHo

    YoHo TrainBoard Supporter

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    I think High Speed Rail is where you're going to find most of your support, but all those curves make it a little questionable.

    Of course, HSR isn't H/W, so you might be able to put it on one of the other lines.



    To satisfy my curiosity, what are the restrictions with routing traffic down the gorge then up to Seatac?
     
  2. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Track capacity. Due to geography. Double tracking is essentially impossible. Further lengthening some sidings would be difficult. I believe most that could be, have already been done.

    It's single track. And trains must stop, or crawl for meets. Which eats up time. Dictates following activities. Feed in any traffic coming and going via the ISG, Amtrak, m-o-w, and? You end up with a limit as to how much can be squeezed through, in any 24 hour period.

    Boxcab E50
     
  3. YoHo

    YoHo TrainBoard Supporter

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    Odd, It always seemed quiet when it wasn't grain rush season.

    UP just dropped Stack service from Council Bluff's to Portland. I wonder if they have the capacity to meet the need. Assuming they could get the trains from Vancouver to Seattle.
     
  4. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Traffic patterns aren't necessarily static. What I wrote about, is what has happened, when that line segment is heavily utilized. Not just seasonal moves, or detour conditions.

    Since the BNSF merger, they've shifted things around several times. Contracts out of ports have come and gone. For a while, they tried to work a lot of stuff toward LA, instead of the PNW. Train levels on the old High Line went waaaaaay down. Then came waaaaaay back up again.

    A direct route across the middle of the State from Seattle, eastward, saves hours, and a lot of money in crews and fuel. As traffic grows, it will eventually reach the constantly full mark. What then? It'll be too late to start talking about doing something.

    I lived directly next to I-90 for 27 years. Watched, heard, smelled, and suffered the dirt, etc, as traffic levels grew. Where we once could hear a truck now and then, it became 24 hours a day, of a solid roar. Our only relief, was a snowstorm. Which muffled the noise. Except when the Pass closed. Then there were miles, and miles of idling trucks fumes to choke on...... Meanwhile, the trains kept a rollin'.

    Boxcab E50
     
  5. Kurt Moose

    Kurt Moose TrainBoard Member

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    The good thing about Stampede Pass is it was originally mostly double track and in some places even triple around the tunnel portals. It would be alot less to double track the whole line segment then to re-construct Snoqualmie Pass cause it was mostly single track with sidings and not much room for anything else. The replacement Hull Creek trestle I don't think was built for nothing more than bikes and now there's alot of housing now built up in the hills now around the old road-bed. NP back in the mid-60's paid a contractor to design and survey a new tunnel from the area around the Borrup Loop section to around the Easton area, but the BN merger put that one in the trash. Who knows, if the BN merger failed, would the "new" Stampede Pass be the dominant crossing?:rolleyes: In the last two years, Stevens Pass has been closed 2-3 times due to weather, as has the line to Portland and eastbound thru the Gorge, but Stampede has not closed one day in a long time, and there's a train about every 2-3 hours that go by my house here in Covington!:cool:
     
  6. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    We can only guess. But I'd bet a modernized, Northern Pacific operated Stampede Pass, would be very competitive routing. As far as I can recall, their biggest headache was not snow, but rainfall. And subsequent washouts.

    :D

    Boxcab E50
     

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