Stuck in Alpine Tunnel for 3 days?

[Kurt Maechner]

Hi, I came across an old newspaper article where Zed Scott said he was on a train that bucked through a slide at east portal and then found the west portal covered by a slide.  They backed to the east portal and found that another snow slide had covered it again.  This happened in 1909.  He said the crew spent three days in the tunnel, keeping the fire in the boiler low to avoid freezing.  Finally a rescue train arrived.  

Do you think this is possible?  Wouldn't they have suffocated?  Wouldn't the section gang at the Alpine Tunnel facilities have dug them out instead of waiting for a rescue train?  It just seems far fetched.

Zed Scott is the same man whose recollections are included in Helmers' Historic Alpine Tunnel.
Kurt

[Chris Walker]

Total BS, given that the west Portal had quite a long Snowshed..... makes for a good story though.

[Kurt Maechner]

Here is the full article text from a 1976 newspaper article:

It was at the Alpine Tunnel that a hang-up incident took place with Old Sixty.  An old time narrow gauge engineer, Zed Scott, who was an old family friend, was visiting here in Idaho Springs about 15 years ago.  We were sitting in Stella’s Café – now Jiggie’s.  Zed kept looking out the front window and finally said, “That old engine sur looks familiar.”  He went across the street and on his return said, “It sure is, I took my student runs as a fireman on it in 1909.  I’ll never forget getting stuck with it in the Alpine Tunnel while a student.”
“We were pulling out of St. Elmo in the middle of January in 1909, with three engines (a double header, six cars, a pusher engine and caboose).  When we came to the east portal of the Alpine, we found it buried by a snow slide.  On the second ram by the train, we broke through into the tunnel.  When we tried to go out the west portal, we found it also buried by a huge slide.  We tried to ram through four or five times and couldn’t make it.  Then we tried to back out of the tunnel and the east portal was again buried by a new slide.  We stayed three days in that old hole until a rescue train dug us out.”
Asked how they made out for three days, Zed replied, “It wasn’t any picnic.  We had food on both the engine and caboose, canned beans, fruit, crackers, and plenty of coffee.  The worst thing was the smoke.  We had to keep low fires in the boilers to keep things from freezing.  Most of it stayed at the top of the tunnel where it condensed, but the air wasn’t too good on the track.  The worst thing was the passing time.  We played cards in the caboose until we were well sick of them.  In fact, I was almost ready to give up railroading as a career before we got out of there.”

[ComoDepot]

I will see what I can find as a general comment in most years by January it had become impractical to keep the tunnel open, snowsheds came and went, sounds like the Section House had been closed, I assume there were supplies of coal and water there if needed and there could be a slide outside the snowshed.

[South Park]

  Since we know that a bunch of guys were asphyxiated by the loco smoke
while trying to clear a small slide inside the tunnel, a tunnel NOT blocked
for airflow from end-to-end, how exactly is it that a locomotive was kept hot
inside a tunnel blocked at both ends for THREE DAYS and anyone made it
past THREE HOURS ???

  Did C&S trains have steam heat to the passenger equipment ?  Is it possible
that a steam heated car was IN the tunnel, while the loco was "stuck" outside
the portal, able to exhaust into the open air ?  I am looking for a possible way
this *could* have happened, but it seems like a wee bit of BS to this "detective".

[Jeff Young]

They said they tried to ram their way out, suggesting that the snow wasn't up over the top of the portal.  From what I understand normal weather patterns had a pretty good breeze going through the tunnel from west to east.

The asphyxiation event was trying to clear blockage in the tunnel, which would have been from floor to ceiling....

[ComoDepot]

Big difference keeping a low fire to stop everything freezing up to operational pressure and usage. Lasted at least 3 days.

There must have been some ventilation, just not very much.

The doors must have been open assuming there were doors at this time.

[South Park]

  As I understood the asphyxiation event, the blockage kept a train
from moving along the track, but could be climbed over by the men
working to clear it.  Was this incorrect intel ?

[ComoDepot]

Without looking it up my recollection is that they were using the locomotive to power a pump.

I have not been able to find  another reference to this, but there are plenty of stories of the great storm that seems to have come in on the 23rd January and lasted through most of February.

There were certainly personnel at Alpine, this is from the time that 9 snow showed out and claimed they were near starvation, turned out there were plenty of supplies and others who stayed, sounded like they had had enough and came up with a convenient story.

The Rotary eventually opened the road, once it had finished on the Leadville line. There was mention of 3 trains being tied up in BV so they would have had no chance up there.

[Robert McFarland]

The rock slide that caused the tunnel tragedy was not a small  one.Check out DSP&P Memorial pp.286-287.The slide dammed up a pool of water that was deep enough that it got in to the ash pan and part of the fire, forming a gas.One of the crew realized what was happening on time and got out.Martenis started to back out  but for some reason took the loco back in, lost consciousness,  and  hit the slide rock.One of the crew at the East Portal working on repairing timbering died when he climbed over to the west side of the rock slide,which was up to 2ft  below the top of the timbering.