Denver and Salt Lake Railway
| Denver and Salt Lake Railway | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Route length: | Denver – Craig: 461 km Dotsero Cutoff: 41 miles Rollins Pass: 32 miles |
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) |
| Maximum slope : | Route through Moffat tunnel: 20 ‰ former route via Rollins Pass: 40 ‰ |
The Denver and Salt Lake Railway was a US railroad company that dates back to the Denver, Northwestern and Pacific Railway (DNW & P), founded on July 18, 1902 by David Moffat and other local businesspeople. It was supposed to bring the city of Denver in Colorado a direct connection to the west after it was not served by the Union Pacific Railroad (UP), which runs north via Cheyenne , or the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad (D & RGW), which runs south via Pueblo . The company should build a railroad from Denver to Salt Lake City , Utah . After Moffat's death on May 2, 1912, it came under bankruptcy administration and was re-established on April 30, 1913 as the Denver and Salt Lake Railroad . In late 1926 it was renamed the Denver and Salt Lake Railway.
history
Track construction under David H. Moffat
David Moffat and his partners Walter S. Cheesman, William G. Evans, Charles J. Hughes, Jr., George E. Ross-Lewin, SM Perry and Frank P. Gibson helped found the Denver, Northwestern and Pacific Railway. Construction began on December 18, 1902.
East ramp
The route chosen by chief engineer HA Sumner leaves Denver in a north-westerly direction and becomes a mountain railway west of the city with gradients of up to 20 ‰. Before it hits the front range , the track loops in a wide loop, the Big Ten Curve , to gain height. It then follows the mountain range about nine kilometers north until it turns west into South Boulder Canyon.
The tracks only reached the end of the valley in 1903, west of Tolland. The line has 30 tunnels between Denver and Tolland , which are closer together on this route than on any other rail route in the United States.
Rollins Pass
The top of the Rollins Pass, which runs over the North American continental divide, is near Corona at 3563 m above sea level. Moffat planned the construction of a top tunnel , but could not finance the construction, which is why the tracks of the DNW & P climbed the pass with a steep route that was exposed to snow and avalanches . The route over the pass was 37 km long and had the maximum gradient of 40 ‰ in many sections. The route over the pass had three more tunnels. These were the tunnel 31 without a name, the Needle's Eye Tunnel (German: " Nadelöhr -Tunnel") with the number 32 about one and a half kilometers east of the pass and the tunnel number 33, called Rifle Sight Notch Tunnel (German: "Gewehrvisier-Scharten- Tunnel “, after the notch that stood like a grain in the valley reminiscent of a rear sight ) on the west side of the pass, where the route was led in a circular loop .
The line over the Rollins Pass was the highest standard gauge main line ever built in North America. At the top of the pass, the Corona train station was set up with a restaurant and overnight accommodation, which served the railway workers who had to keep the route open in winter. A track triangle was used to turn locomotives. When there was heavy snowfall, trains were often blocked for days in winter. The constant battle with the snow made the route unprofitable.
The construction of the line cost 75,000 US dollars per mile and devoured the entire fortune of Moffat, who died on March 18, 1911, at around 14 million dollars.
On the Colorado River
The line was completed to Arrow in 1904. In the spring of 1905 the tracks reached as far as Fraser. Other stops were Tabernash, Granby, Hot Sulfur Springs, Byers Canyon and Parshall at the entrance to Williams Fork Canyon . In July 1906 they reached Kremmling , Colorado. There the tracks turned westward through Gore Canyon to Radium through the Colorado River valley until a connection to the existing lines was made at State Bridge . Steamboat Springs was reached in the winter of 1909. In 1913, the border between Colorado and Utah was reached at Craig in Moffat County , Colorado.
The DNW & P was placed under bankruptcy administration after Moffat's death on May 2, 1912 and was re-established as the Denver and Salt Lake Railroad on April 30, 1913, which became the Denver and Salt Lake Railway at the end of 1926.
Moffat tunnel
The Moffat Tunnel cuts the watershed north of central Colorado. He created Denver a west link through the Rocky Mountains between Cheyenne in the north and Pueblo in the south, both of which already had rail links to the west. This 6.2 mile (10 km) long tunnel sits at the apex 9,239 feet (2,816 m) above sea level. James Peak is the closest peak to the north. Fifty miles west of Denver, the railroad emerges from the mountain range and meets the tracks built by DH Moffat in 1902. The tunnel breakthrough took place on July 7, 1927 and was formally handed over to D&SL on February 26, 1928. The tunnel shortened the railroad line between Denver and the Pacific by 176 miles (238 km) and thus by more than four hours of travel time. 28 workers died in accidents during its construction. It also cost $ 15.6 million to build.
West portal
East portal
Dotsero cutoff
The Denver and Salt Lake Railroad was reorganized in 1926 to the Denver and Salt Lake Railway. In 1931, the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad acquired the Denver and Salt Lake Western Railroad - a subsidiary of the Denver and Salt Lake Railroad (D&SL), which owned the rights to build the 40 mile (64 km) link between the two existing lines. After the D & RGW systematically ignored the D&SL, it acquired the operating rights from Denver up to the new cut, the Dotsero cutoff. In 1932, D&RGW construction began on the line at the Dotsero cutoff from Dotsero in east Glenwood Springs , Colorado to Bond on the Colorado River , where it ended in a place called Orestod (Dotsero spelled backwards). Dotsero was created in 1890 on a standard gauge line from Glenwood Springs. With the completion of this route in 1934, Denver finally had its transcontinental rail link to the west.
After this exertion, the D & RGW was bankrupt in 1935. In 1947 there was a merger with D&SL, so that on March 3, 1947, the new company again owned the Moffat line through the Moffat Tunnel and the branch line from Bond to Craig.
Moffat's legacy
Although Moffat was viewed by contemporaries as a futile dreamer, today he is valued as ahead of his time. His legacy includes the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad as what later became part of the Union Pacific Railroad , which has outlived all other railroads in Colorado. The Rollins Pass route is different, of which only a part is in operation as an access to the Moffat Tunnel, which continues from Denver to Phippsburg as the Moffat Tunnel Subdivision .
References in English
- Athearn, Robert G .: The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad: Rebel of the Rockies . University of Nebraska Press, 1977.
- Boner, Harold: The Giant's Ladder. Kalmbach Publishing Co. Milwaukee WI 1962.
- Griswold, PR: David Moffat's Denver, Northwestern and Pacific: The Moffat Road . Rocky Mountain Railroad Club, Denver, Colo. 1995, ISBN 0-9620707-2-6 .
- Lawrence Lewis: A Feat In Railroad Building: A New Road Over The Rocky Mountains From Denver To Salt Lake . In: The World's Work: A History of Our Time . XI, November 1905, pp. 6859-6870. with many photos from 1905
- Rolf Stumpf: Moffat's Unfinished . In: Railways in North America (3) . EK-Verlag GmbH, ISSN 0170-5288 , p. 52-57 .
Web links
- Photographs from the Denver Public Library , now kept at the Library of Congress
Individual evidence
- ↑ Rollins Pass Route Photos. (No longer available online.) In: www.matts-place.com. Archived from the original on March 22, 2016 ; accessed on February 29, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
