Re: Alpine Tunnel Construction Camps

Posted by Dave Eggleston on
URL: http://c-sng-discussion-forum.254.s1.nabble.com/Alpine-Tunnel-Construction-Camps-tp19236p19263.html

I absolutely agree with you, Rick. This is heavily based on conjecture. And you make a fantastic point about taxation. We're on the same page. And yep, documentation is poor and even the C&S had no idea of quite a bit of the history of what it inherited. Even the DL&G didn't. All I have are two asks:

My first ask is to a source for that picture of the D&LG car sitting by the Hancock wye so I'm sure I'm looking at the same picture you mention.

My second ask is for anything documenting/showing a wye in place prior to 1904. I agree that a wye there in 1881 is logical but also conjectural. Beyond that, I only know of a few pieces of evidence about a wye there at all: the DL&G era photo and later correspondence, ICC map and C&S timetables.

Questioning the wye goes against a long-held belief. I believed it. Then my reading late 1903 correspondence in Daniel Edwards' Vol. 1 South Park Documentary History, pages 94-95 are several transcribed letters on building a wye at Hancock, ultimately AFE 118, dated 11/6/1903.

Sept 30, 1903: a recommendation to "put in a Y at Hancock" to address the need for turning engines during winter, which would pay for itself in saved overtime and shoveling expenses incurred by engines backing between Hancock and the Tunnel.

Nov 6, 1903: laying out expenses and a recommendation of location which will "take a small amount of work to make a wye." It includes 548 yards of grading and materials, for 1300' of track, including rail, frogs, spikes, switch stands, etc.

Nov 9, 1903: more justification, primarily to handle snow removal issues between Hancock and the Tunnel. "The nearest wye east of the tunnel is located at Mt. Princeton [...] the nearest wye on the west side is located at Pitkin." [No mention of the turntable at the tunnel enginehouse--in place but unused?]

Jan 14, 1904: covering extra expenses required, which included grading frozen earth, blasting several boulders and making the tail 16' longer to accomodate the rotary.

Conclusive? Absolutely not, but this could be read like there was no wye in place at that time, in fact no rails nor grade. It could possibly be read as a large reworking of an existing grade. And we could make the conjecture that a wye was there and later removed and then forgotten by those working in Denver.

The wording raises just enough question to catch my eye. Yes, it goes against the overwhelming historical belief .  Perhaps sacrilegiously I've cautiously wondered if that belief of a wye at Hancock was a projection backward into time from a reference on a C&S document (timetable or ICC map?), an assumption, a logical idea, that became codified in Poor's opus and has been perpetuated in later books, such as Ferrell. Neither Poor nor Ferrell cite the source of their reference and map. I wish they had!

Only that photo provides insight on a wye during the 1890s.