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About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 1, 1887)
CM THE WES ginca, one pulling and the other push ing, with much pulling and labor, car ried the train slowly up the first steep grade, which rose steadily before us for a distance of nearly half a mile. Here, hating parsed a switch conLecting with a track leading in exactly the opposite direction, but ascending with the same steep grade, we stopped and started backwards, the former rear locomotiTe being now the forward one. This was done threo times, the four tracks lying in tiers along the mountain side (see engravings on pages 652, COL and 674). The following simple diagram shows the principle of the switchback so plainly that a child can understand it The positions of the switches are in dicated by the letter H, the horizontal line at the bottom representing the main track at the level of the tunnel. It is easy to see how this method of construc tion will take a track up one sido of a mountain, where it is impossible to have a continuous lino by going around it The engravings show the nature of the road, which consists largely of steep em bankments, braced with logs and tim bers, and long, high trestles. Aftr we had passing the third, and lwt, switch, we began running around among the small summit peaks in an ex cmlingly eccentric manner, always as cending. At one point wo mado a com plete double horsehhoe, the smoko of tho engine at the mouth of the tunnel, now a thousand feet below us, being seen alternately from opposite windows. Whilo we were thus going steadily up. ward, the darkness of night was as stead ily closing down upon us, until, when we T SHORE. stopped beneath the huge snow sheds at the very summit, the magnificent land scape which opens out to the eyes of the traveler who crosses the mountain by daylight, was obscured from our view. The track on the eastean elope is very similar to that on the west, there being two switches instead of three. There is this difference, however that the track in many places is covered with snow sheds (see engravings on page 651), which will be necessary to protect it from the numerous avalanches which rush down the mountain 3ides in winter. The company is building many miles of these sheds along its main line east of the tunnel,and work is being pushed on them with all the speed possible, in or der to complete them before winter sets in. The headquarters of the contractors, Messrs. Glenn, Bonzey & Co., are at Easton, a few miles down the mountain from the eastern entrance to the tunnel. As we approached the main line again the lights in the buildings at the en trance to the eastern end of the tunnel (see engraving on page 662) glinted through the dark treetops, and the dash ing sound of the beautiful cascade at that point warned us that our journey was ended, and that the wonderful switchback had been safely crossed. Work on the tunnel is progressing with great celerity. Several shifts of men are at work, day and night, by the light of electric lamps. By the platform system, as shown in the engraving (see page 651), progress is made on the head ing and breast simultaneously. A visit to the interior, after a long journey in the dark, disclosed a busy scene at the end. A large gang of men were at work in the glare of an electric light, some of them boring into the face of the rock with air drills, others carrying the de tached pieces of rock on wheel-barrows and dumping them into the little ore cars, in which they are drawn to the