ton itself was swept down the hillside into the gulch and buried under tons of mud and snow. The situation had been dangerous all winter since a forest fire had destroyed the timber on the hillside during the previous summer. The trees which would have anchored the snow and mud in place were no longer there.

over

A deathly stillness settled Wellington. Any human being who had been anywhere near the railroad tracks was down in the gorge in the avalanche. The electric locomotives, the rotary plow, and some of the passenger cars could be seen sticking up out of the snow and mud, and a few dazed people were beginning to pull themselves up out of the passenger cars. A yard man finally got to a telephone at the tunnel portal and called Cascade Tunnel Station only to find that it too had been practically wiped out by an east slope avalanche. Word was finally passed to Scenic and relayed by a roundabout route to Spokane. When the Leavenworth crew which had fought its way up to Merritt with the east slope rotary contacted Leavenworth to report that they couldn't raise Wellington on the wire, the sad news was passed to them.

Despite superhuman effort, it was two days before the east slope crew, which by now consisted of 250 men under the personal supervision of General Manager Gruber, plus the rotary and two big Mallets, finally fought their way up to Cascade Tunnel Station. As the big rotary ground its way down the main track on March 11, the crew were appalled at the terrible devastation. Every building in the little town of Cascade Tunnel had been smashed flat. However, after plowing out the main track they found there had been no deaths, although many people had been severely injured.

But if Cascade Tunnel Station had been lucky, Wellington at the West Portal had not. After clearing the tracks at Cascade Tunnel Station, the plow train passed through the tunnel. Even though they had been forewarned by the people at the East Portal, the crew were hardly prepared for the catastrophe that met their eyes as the rotary eased out of the tunnel at Wellington. In contrast to the lack of casualties at the East Portal, 84 people had died in the two trains and 17 elsewhere. The death list of 101 persons ranks as the worst snowslide disaster in the United States.

On March 11 an eastbound rotary churned its way into Wellington from Skykomish, followed by a passenger train, the first in 16 days. Big G was moving again after the most costly tieup in its history.

ONCE AGAIN the Consolidations and Mallets were hauling trains through the tunnel, but this was to be the last -the very last-time. The wire crews finally put the electrification back in service, and by the summer of 1910 the electrics were hauling trains through the tunnel once more.

With 67 Mallets in service, Great Northern was the largest user of this type of locomotive. Jim Hill was constantly prodding his motive power department for bigger power, and in 1910 it came up with a novel idea. Some of the Cooke, Rogers, and Schenectady Consolidations were sent to the Baldwin Works for rebuilding, never again to be seen as 2-8-0's. Instead they came back to the Cascades in the form of the biggest motive power yet seen in the mountains: 2-6-8-0 M1 road Mallets. Baldwin had taken the old Consolidations and lengthened the boiler, then had put an additional six-coupled engine under the boiler and moved the old Consolidation twowheel trailing truck forward of the new engine. The six-coupled engine included low-pressure cylinders with a 35-inch bore and 32-inch stroke. The Consolidation's old 21-inch cylinders were bored out to 23 inches and used as high-pressure cylinders. The resulting locomotive developed some 78,000 pounds tractive effort, had 350,000 pounds weight on drivers, and had feedwater heater and superheater.

That these 2-6-8-0 Mallets were successful is indicated by the fact that the Great Northern used them until 1927 in the original form received from Baldwin and then rebuilt them again, increasing the weight to 394,000 pounds and the tractive effort to 102,592 pounds.

Again in 1911 the Great Northern went to the motive power market, purchasing the first of more than 200 2-8-2 locomotives. These were designated Class O and assigned to the 3000 series. Their 61,500-pound tractive effort was not the equal of that of the 2-6-8-0 Mallets, but the O's were more suited to road service than the Mallets and they operated much more efficiently and cheaply. The Great Northern was to continue purchasing these efficient, versatile locomotives until 1933, when the last of the O class

used in the role of helpers on passen

ger trains.

In 1912 Great Northern again invested in big power, this time primarily to increase the size of the ore trains on the eastern end of the system. However, some of the big 2-8-8-0 Mallets eventually eventually found their way into Cascade Mountain service and they are worth mentioning here. They developed 100,350 pounds tractive effort and 420,000 pounds on drivers, and carried 210 pounds boiler pressure. Some of these machines were rebuilt for simple operation in later years the first in 1923. (This may have been the first simple articulated locomotive.)

The backbone of the Cascade Mountain freight power for many more years until the old line up to Wellington (by then called Tye) was abandoned was to be the Class 01 Mikado and the Class M2 2-6-8-0 Mallet. One of these Mikados would arrive at Skykomish from Seattle with 60 cars, about 2500 tons. Two of the big 2-6-8-0 Mallets would be waiting. One would be cut in about one-third of the way back and the other about two-thirds of the way back. The road engine would take coal and water and receive a brief inspection.

An hour after the Mike arrived at Skykomish the train was ready to move again. For perhaps the 10,000th time the Great Northern was again to take up its everlasting battle with those cursed 21 miles of 2.2 per cent grade. In one respect the battle hadn't changed much. It was still grind, grind, grind away at 5, 6, or 7 mph. But the operating characteristics had changed; a lot more skill was required to handle 2500 tons of train with better than 200,000 pounds of tractive effort than had been required to handle 600 tons with two of the old Brooks 1892 2-8-0's. Also, whereas the two old Brooks engines and their entire 600-ton train could get lost in Horseshoe Tunnel, when the Mike and its engineer broke into daylight on the upper trestle he could look down on the lower trestle and wave to the crews on the hack and the second pusher. Too, usually only one water stop was necessary at Scenic for 20 minutes.

Four and a half hours after leaving Sky, the three engines would ease their train into Wellington Yard. The pushers were cut out of the train and the electrics coupled in, two in the middle and two in front of the Mike. The electrics hauled the train through the tunnel at about 7.5 mph in 22 minutes. The stop at Tye was short only 15 minutes. After a stop at Cascade Tunnel Station to switch out the electrics, the train would head down

the grade to Wenatchee, which it would reach in about 4 hours. This was quite some difference in operation from the early days. One of the Mikes could haul a 60-car, 2500-ton train from Seattle in 15 hours with two Class M Mallets between Skykomish and Wellington. In the old days, operating over Stevens Pass, this trip could take days.

2500-TON trains created a new problem with the electrification. For several years three units had been used to pull 1600-ton trains and a 2-6-8-0 Mallet through the tunnel at 15 mph. With the advent of 2500-ton trains three units could not provide enough power. For a while the trains were broken in two at Tye and hauled through the tunnel in two cuts. This was time-consuming, and when in 1923 the division point was moved from Leavenworth 22 miles farther east to Wenatchee, thus adding still more running time to each trip, it was decided that the trains must go through the tunnel in one piece and eliminate switching time. Adding a fourth unit to drag trains through the tunnel at 15 mph in one piece would have overloaded the power plant. So the electrical engineers got their heads together and devised what is known as a "concatenated" traction motor connection which would allow the motors to run at half speed, thereby enabling them to pull more tonnage without overloading the power plant. This also permitted the addition of a fourth unit to the train. This motor connection was quite successful and in later years it became known as the "Cascade" connection.

From 1923 on, four electric locomo

tives could pull the 2500-ton trains through the tunnel, but at half the former speed, or at 7.5 mph. Passenger trains were hauled through by two units at the usual 15 mph.

This posed a new problem. Actually the electric locomotives were now being used less than before because of the fact that there were fewer and heavier trains operating than in former years. Crews, locomotives, and power plants were sitting around idle, an expensive proposition. The Great Northern studied the problem and decided that the time had come to extend the electrification to Skykomish. Their study indicated that the necessary investment would result in considerable operating savings, and the railroad's management made the decision to construct the extension. At this time another study was made concerning the feasibility of a new tunnel which would permit the abandonment of not only the old tunnel electrification but also some 9 miles of the proposed new extension

that between Tye and Scenic. Such a tunnel would eliminate practically all of the snowsheds and virtually remove the never-ending fear of avalanches.

Once again the Big G called on John Frank Stevens. He made an exhaustive examination of the proposed tunnel project in 1925, some 25 years after he had completed the boring of the original tunnel. He had not been idle meantime but had taken a most important part in the completion of the Panama Canal some years before. Stevens' recommendation that the tunnel be built was accepted by the Board of Directors in November 1925. So, with sure knowledge that the

extension would be in use only a few years, construction costs for the 9 miles of electrification between Tye and Scenic were held to an absolute minimum. The new electrification would be of the 11,000-volt, singlephase type, which meant that the old three-phase system would be discontinued. Hence, on March 5, 1927, a new single-phase system was placed in operation on the 25 miles between Skykomish and Cascade Tunnel Station. The old powerhouse generators continued to be used since they could be operated as single-phase machines, although a second single-phase plant was installed at Skykomish as a 7500kilowatt frequency changer station.

Meantime, once the decision to bore new Cascade Tunnel had been made, the deteriorating condition of the snowsheds made it imperative that the new tunnel be completed by the winter of 1928-1929. Hence, in late 1925 the contracting firm of A. Guthrie & Company of St. Paul, Minn., was given the contract to proceed with all possible speed. To expedite the work, the contractor used the novel method of boring a smaller diameter tunnel 60 feet south of the main bore, to one side of the proposed location of the main tunnel. He then moved men and supplies to several locations in this pilot tunnel. They bored through to the main tunnel center line and then began working in both directions from several points at the same time. Thus several crews were at work all the time instead of one crew at each working face. This method resulted in a drilling record of 4.8 months per mile of tunnel in comparison with 7.2 months per mile for 12.4-mile Simplon, 8.2 months per mile for 5-mile

Connaught, and 8.7 months per mile for 6.1-mile Moffat.

New motive power was ordered in 1927. Baldwin-Westinghouse delivered two new 1-D-1+1-D-1 locomotives, actually two 1-D-1 units coupled together in multiple, in March of 1927 and two more in 1928. General Electric delivered two new 1-C+C-1 locomotives in September of 1927 and two in 1928. All of these locomotives saw service on the old line with its new extension from Skykomish to Tye and through the 22-mile tunnel to Cascade. This was the first largescale motor-generator locomotive installation in the world. This type of locomotive had been pioneered by Henry Ford in 1925 on his companyowned Detroit, Toledo & Ironton Railroad, and a few of the type had been built in the Ford Plant for that road.

A peculiar thing happened on the "old" electrification some years before it was finally abandoned. Sometimes in tunnel operation it happens that an engineer cannot actually be sure whether he is moving or not. One day two electric units tied onto the head end of a train in Tye Yard. The other two units coupled on as pushers. The train got under way on the 2.2 per cent grade in Tye Yard and entered the tunnel. After the lead locomotive was in the tunnel the pushers suddenly lost all power. The engineer of the lead locomotive did not realize that this had happened because his motors kept running at their normal synchronous speed and he supposed that he was moving ahead at the usual 7.5 mph. What actually had happened was that the train gradually slowed with the wheels running at synchronous speed until it came to a complete stop. The lead locomotive's motors continued to run at synchronous speed and the wheels actually ground themselves down through the rail. The engineer continued to operate the locomotive with the controller in the power position until the usual time for the trip had expired, but he still couldn't see daylight. Finally he shut off to investigate and found that the locomotive had been standing still for a good 10 minutes. The wheels had ground two-thirds of the way through the rail web, and had almost reached the base of the rail. Unbelievable as this may sound to flatland railroaders, the story with a picture of the rail in question actually was published in the 1919 Electric Railway Journal.

THE new electric locomotives would have pleased Jim Hill (he had passed on in 1916) had he been able to see them hauling 3500-ton trains up the Tye River Valley to the old tunnel. Such a train would arrive in Sky from

Seattle double-headed behind two Mikes. One Mike would drop off and a new electric would tie onto the head end with a second electric as pusher. Whereas a Mike and two Mallets had taken 4 hours to move 2500 tons to the summit, the two electrics and the Mike moved the 3500 tons to Tye in only 14 hours. No wonder the Great Northern was willing to electrify this route even with the sure knowledge that part of it would shortly be abandoned. Passenger trains arriving in Skykomish with a steam road engine took one electric helper. This operation began in March of 1927 and continued until the new tunnel was opened in January of 1929.

Steam operation did not cease immediately. Westbound trains continued to be steam operated until late in 1928. Harold S. Ogden, who has spent a working lifetime in electric locomotive propulsion equipment design at GE's locomotive plant in Erie, Pa., remembers taking a passenger train from Skykomish up to Cascade Tunnel Station with the 5010, a brandspanking-new GE electric, late in 1927. The 5010 dropped down the grade to Skykomish running light, but Harold decided to ride a westbound steam freight for the experi

ence.

The old Mallet, with a nudge from the pusher (the train was hanging down the east slope) eased into the tunnel's East Portal and picked up speed. After the usual lurch when the hind end came over the top, the engineer made a 20-pound brake pipe reduction, studied the air gauge, and finally said, "Well, I guess we got 'em." Harold says he wondered what would have happened if "we didn't have 'em" - what with the 1.7 per cent grade in the tunnel in front of them and the string of pushing freight cars in back of them. He didn't have to wonder much because the engine crews had told him of trains that had run through the safety switch at the West Portal and on up the "runaway" track. In some tragic cases they had overrun the end of the runaway track and had gone down the mountainside in a jumbled pile of wreckage.

Some years previous, just before the safety switch had been installed, a trainload of apples was dropping down through the tunnel when the engineer made the usual air reduction. Nothing happened. Too late to do anything about the frozen brake pipe just behind the engine, so the crew unloaded when the train shot out of the tunnel and watched it roll down the main line's 2.2 per cent grade. It kept on going for several miles, but could not negotiate the curve at Windy Point,

where it derailed and rolled down the mountain.

Harold relates that the safety rules required that the engineer carry the staff for the runaway track switch. Because of this the engineer brought his train to a complete stop so that the switch could be unlocked and set for the main line. After the brakeman threw the switch the engineer released the brakes and they started down the hill. Shortly before entering the first concrete snowshed just beyond Tye, the engineman dropped off the staff to the Tye agent who would see that it was returned to the East Portal for use by another engine crew.

The first snowshed reminded the crew to tell Harold the reason for its existence. They related the story of the terrible disaster of 1909 when the original showsheds which had been constructed of fir logs had been swept away in the avalanche. After that the Great Northern re-erected the sheds, this time of concrete. From then on, although there had been many slides, there had been no further disasters.

Harold recalls that of the 8 miles of track between Tye and Scenic, 6 miles were under snowsheds! These snowsheds are still visible and railfans who are interested in looking

over the old Tye River Valley line can drive east on U. S. Highway 2 from Seattle or west from Wenatchee and examine the several miles, of these old concrete snowsheds which are clearly visible from the auto route.

After passing through short, curved Windy Point Tunnel, which was built after the apple train had plunged down the mountainside from the track which had then run around the outside of the point, they passed Scenic only a few hundred feet down - although yet several rail miles away with the engineman paying constant attention to his air brake gauges. A few miles farther they crossed Martin's Creek Trestle, now a heavy steel structure which many years before had replaced the original timber trestle, then squealed through Horseshoe Tunnel's continuous curvature and came out onto the lower trestle from which Harold could see the caboose disappearing into the tunnel entrance from the upper trestle. The two ends of the train were in daylight with the middle in the tunnel. Other than the trestle and tunnel trackage, most of the tracks were under snowsheds, with the low line shed just below the high line shed. Twice more Harold saw the caboose headed in the op

posite direction, once on the long horseshoe curve at Scenic and finally on the long loop over Tonga Creek, a few miles outside Skykomish. It took a lot of curvature to cross the Cascades without letting the grade exceed 2.2 per cent.

Three other GE engineers, Ben Luther, J. B. Cox, and R. Walsh, actually experienced a runaway ride down the mountain. Ben, who recently retired from GE's Locomotive Control Engineering Unit, tells the story. They were riding a two-unit GE locomotive back to Skykomish, running light. The locomotive had slowed to a walk at the West Portal and the brakeman ran ahead to unlock the runaway track switch, throwing it for the main line. Just then the engineman discovered that they had lost the air. The GE men and the engine crew immediately found themselves face to face with a most unhappy situation. The eastbound Oriental Limited was very shortly due at the tunnel; in fact, the light locomotive was to meet it at Tye Station just outside the tunnel. Instead, they were rolling with no brakes down a 2.2 per cent grade past the station.

It didn't take long to figure out what the trouble was, but getting it

fixed was another matter. The locomotive had been in regenerative braking approaching the tunnel switch. While in regenerative braking an interlock prevents the locomotive air brakes (except emergency) from working in order to prevent the combination of regenerative and air braking from flattening the wheels. Had the locomotive been hauling a train, train brakes would have been available and the loss of air brakes on the locomotive would not have been too serious. The interlock had stuck open and when the engineer attempted to apply the air brake, after releasing the regenerative brake, nothing happened. He tried an emergency air brake application but that didn't work either because of some defect in the air system. The attempted emergency application then complicated the situation by preventing the regenerative brake from working. The only solution (other than bailing out) was for them to work their way back to the rear cab of the locomotive and transfer the operation to that end. The interlock on that end was operating properly and they were able to restore braking control and get stopped a few miles down the hill. They backed up to Tye, got into a siding off the main line, and within a matter of minutes watched the Oriental Limited go by. Had they not been able to transfer control to the rear cab, there would have been no possible way to avoid a head-on collision with the passenger train, or a derailment or a rollover down the mountainside. As it was, the ride was a wild one while it lasted. To prevent this ever happening again, the Great Northern installed a special emergency brake valve in all electric locomotive cabs. This was a simple valve which permitted main reservoir air pressure to be directly applied to the brake cylinders. The engineers christened it the "straight shot." Thus, if both regenerative and air braking equipment should fail, the engineman would still be able to stop the locomotive with a straight shot of main reservoir air.

An unusual operation occurred during the last three months of 1928. The new electrification was complete from Wenatchee to the East Portal of the new tunnel, and of course, the old electrification was still in operation from the old tunnel to Skykomish. To break in the new electric locomotives, the Big G had them hauling passenger trains from Wenatchee up to the East Portal. But what to do then? There were 41⁄2 miles of track without wires between there and the old electrification. So they tied on a Mallet to pull the whole train, electric locomotive

and all, up the grade to the old tunnel. From there, of course, the electric could reach up and latch onto a wire again to complete the run to Skykomish. For 20 years electrics had been hauling steam locomotives and their trains through the Cascades, but in the last three months before being banished forever from the mountains, the old steamers momentarily turned the tables.

The new 25-million-dollar tunnel, longest in the Western Hemisphere, was opened for service on January 12, 1929. On that day the first trains operated over the 73 miles from Wenatchee to Skykomish and through the 8-mile tunnel under the wires all the way. Except for some limited operation during World War II, steam operation ceased forever and the old tunnel at Tye was abandoned to Mother Nature. The elimination of the old line between Scenic and Tye has probably contributed more to the prosperity of the Great Northern than has any other line improvement in its history. In addition to shortening the road by some 9 miles, it also removed about 40,000 feet of showsheds along with those nightmarish (in wintertime) 9 miles of 2.2 per cent grade along the side of the mountain between Scenic and Tye, and the track between old Cascade Tunnel Station and Berne (West Portal of the new tunnel). The two big steel trestles over Martin's Creek and several smaller bridges were also eliminated and the Summit was reduced from 3382 feet to 2883 feet.

By January of 1929, national radio hookups were becoming common and since the new Cascade Tunnel had generated considerable public interest, a hookup of 38 stations reaching an estimated 15 million people was arranged for the opening ceremonies. Announcers at the East and West Portals were to describe the opening to the nation over the radio.

One of the new electric locomotives hauled a special train of newspaper reporters and dignitaries through the tunnel from east to west. It first stopped at the East Portal for the opening ceremonies. The two-unit locomotive was just inside the tunnel with the train outside. The sudden change from cold air outside the tunnel to warm air inside the tunnel caused considerable condensation in the locomotive, and on attempting to start the train after the ceremonies, a serious arc-over occurred on the transformer of the second unit. Without the second unit, the first unit was unable to move the train and it began to look as though the long-expected opening of the Cascade Tunnel would end in a fiasco.

Fortunately, the Great Northern had had the foresight to have another electric available and it shoved the train through the tunnel portal and onto the 8-mile downgrade. However, with the trailing unit out of service, it was not possible to use the regenerative brake on the second unit and the train had to be dropped down the grade with air brakes. Because of the danger of overheating brake shoes and wheels, the speed was much slower than it would have been with regenerative braking. The expected 20minute trip took approximately 35 minutes.

A paper cover had been stretched over the West Portal so that the locomotive could burst through it, and the announcer at the West Portal was to report this to the nation with the usual amount of dramatics common to radio announcing of that date. After the 20 minutes passed and no train appeared, the announcer gradually ran out of words and enthusiasm and the network had to fill in with band music. When the locomotive finally did burst through the paper-covered portal, it was probably debatable who was most relieved, the network, the announcer, or the Great Northern.

AFTER the new tunnel was opened additional motive power came to the Cascades. Baldwin-Westinghouse delivered a fifth 1-D-1+1-D-1 and GE delivered four more of the 1-C+C-1 units. The Baldwins usually operated with two units coupled together as a locomotive; such a locomotive developed 88,500 pounds continuous tractive effort at 15 mph and weighed 715,000 pounds. Maximum allowable speed was 45 mph. A single GE unit developed 60,000 pounds continuous tractive effort, weighed 518,000 pounds with 410,000 pounds on drivers, and had a maximum safe operating speed of 50 mph.

To see two of the new electrics taking 5000 tons from Skykomish over the 24 miles to the new East Portal at Berne would have made Jim Hill happy; probably it would have amazed him to see them doing it in 1 hour 30 minutes. Something new had been added to railroading which probably would have been immediately recognized by Hill. Sharp railroader that he was, he would almost certainly have changed his slogan from "Maximum ton-miles with minimum trainmiles" to "Maximum gross ton-miles per train-hour," a newer yardstick by which operating vice-presidents measure the efficiency of their train operation. This is just another way of saying," Move more tons faster."

Before the electrification took over, the new Class P2 Mountain-type en