The Battle For Winter Here's something from long ago on a special day when I rode the snow fleet up to Tunnel deep in the wilds of the Chugach Mountains. This is what I wrote when I first shared this long ago. The snow fleet has been climbing the steady 2% plus grade up from Spencer and is curling around by the site of the former Tunnel section house at MP 51. While no longer the home to a regular section crew, Tunnel is still a base for Maintenance of Way (MoW) crews to begin their assault on the treacherous avalanche zones in the loop district up to Grandview. Jordan Spreader #7 is in the lead with two geeps and a depressed center flat car trailing. Note the warning sign for Slide Zone 51 which the train is just exiting and the block sign for Tunnel Siding which is completely buried under chest deep snow. The work train crew is heading south up hill toward the site of the massive slide near MP49 in the famous loop district that buried a northbound freight out of Seward nearly a week prior. The excavator with the custom designed snow bucket is on its way to continue the arduous task of extracting flat cars from a tomb of snow. Here's a news story from back then. And scroll down thru this page for some crazy photos. Tunnel Station |
