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Colorado Midland Railway Daylight Through the Divide Dan Abbott HardCover SIGNED
Colorado Midland Railway Daylight Through the Divide by Dan Abbott SIGNED #1144
Hard Cover Has plastic protective cover
376 pages
Copyright 1989
CONTENTS
Introduction Page 9
The Beginning Page 13
Gateway Through the Divide Page 41
A Graveyard Tunnel Page 77
Turmoil and the Tempestuous Winter Page 107
Reconciliation and End of the Line Page 139
Snow on the Colorado Midland Page 147
On and Off the Track Page 167
Other Tunnels Along the Midland Page 181
APPENDICES
A. Details of Hagerman Tunnel Page 197
B. Details of Busk-Ivanhoe Tunnel Page 197
C. Stations Along the Tunnel Routes Page 198
D. Scenes Along the Colorado Midland Page 211
E. Equipment Rosters Page 312
F. Hagerman Ghost Page 355
G. Articles of Incorporation Page 358
Bibliography Page 366
Index Page 374
INTRODUCTION
When the standard gauge Colorado Midland Railway was being constructed through the heart of the Rockies in 1886, James John Hagerman little realized that the railroad's first tunnel under the Continental Divide would be used for a little more than eight years. However, the Hagerman and Busk-Ivanhoe tunnels had careers in every way as exceptional as that of the Colorado Midland Railroad.
Work began on the Saguache tunnel (as it was first known) some sixteen miles west of Leadville before the middle of June in 1886. Energetically pushed at first, the activity of excavating the bore slowed during the winter, but was not completely interrupted. By March of the following year, over half the tunnel was completed. Work was then increased to such extent that the headings were breached on June 13, 1887.
Piercing the Continental backbone of the Saguache Range at an elevation of 11,528 feet, it entered a mountain whose crest was 12,110 feet above the sea. From the eastern entrance to the western exit the tunnel was 2,064 feet in length, while its width was sixteen feet with a height of eighteen feet. The aggregate cost of the work was found to be a little over $200,000. For a few years the Hagerman tunnel represented the highest point reached by a standard gauge railway in North America.
Trains continued without interruption through the Hagerman tunnel from August 30, 1887 until December 13, 1893, a little more than six years. Trains began running through the longer and lower Busk-Ivanhoe tunnel, which had been built by the Busk Tunnel Railway Company and leased to the Colorado Midland, on the latter date. Trackage, however, on the Hagerman Pass "high line" was left intact.
As early as 1888 preliminary surveys had been made for this second tunnel under the Continental Divide, which would eliminate the ten mile tortuous and costly "high line." Work began on the Busk-Ivanhoe tunnel on July 26, 1890 and after three years of hard strenuous labor-not to mention many accidents-the bench was completed on November 11, 1893.
The Busk-Ivanhoe tunnel, as completed, was 9,400 feet in length, with a width of fifteen feet and a height of twenty-one feet, while its cost was somewhat over a million dollars. Trains ran through the Busk-Ivanhoe tunnel from December 13, 1893 until October 30, 1897-almost four years. On October 31, 1897 trains again began laboring through the Colorado Midland's Hagerman tunnel, after a quarrel over the rental agreement with the owners of the Busk Tunnel Railway.
During 1899 an interruption occurred when the tempestuous winter of that year closed the Hagerman Pass "high line" from January 27th until April 14th - a total of 77 days. Shortly after this long and costly snow blockade, the railroad management and the Busk tunnel management came to terms, and on June 20, 1899 the last revenue train passed through the Hagerman tunnel. By the end of June 1900 the Hagerman Pass "high line" had been dismantled; no longer would Colorado Midland's trains run over the top of the world.
Colorado Midland trains continued running through the Busk-Ivanhoe tunnel from June 20, 1899 until the middle of October 1921 - after more than 22 years of continuous service - when the dismantling train removed the rails. During this twenty-two year period, a succession of corporate presidents attempted to guide the railroad's path through not only the tortuous physical curves encountered on its climb, but also to guide its financial course in brave but futile attempts to avoid the cavernous depths of bankruptcy.
Even though the rails of the Colorado Midland are gone, the Busk-Ivanhoe tunnel lives on. Renamed the Carlton tunnel, it operated for a time as an automobile route with a toll charged for passing through the bore.
The tunnel was also used to carry water from the western slope to the eastern slope by means of a wooden flume. However, by 1945 a cave-in closed the tunnel to vehicular travel, and the water company purchased the tunnel, and by 1957 a $500,000 rehabilitation program was completed.
Today, after almost one hundred years, the Colorado Midland's Busk-Ivanhoe tunnel still serves Colorado, after such a fantastic and varied career.
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