118 
RAILROAD PRACTICABILITY OF SNOQUALME PASS. 
approved by Stevenson, the great English engineer, seven and two-thirds miles in length, without 
shafts, the mountain rising 5,000 feet above the line of the tunnel. Mr. Maus proposes to use a 
machine, and work it by water-power. The grade will be 105 feet to the mile. 
Shafts can be sunk in rock about three feet per day. A tunnel without a machine can be 
pushed three feet from each face per twenty-four hours ; and with a machine like that proposed 
for the Hoosack tunnel, six feet per twenty-four hours; and like that proposed by Mr. Maus, 
11-iV feet per twenty-four hours. 
The proposed tunnel under the Snoqualme Pass will be 11,845 yards in length; in width 
sufficient for a double track, varying from 22 to 24 feet in the extreme ; top semicircular, and 
extreme height 20| feet. Five shafts will be required, 333, 604£, 800, 800, and 407 feet, respect¬ 
ively, in depth, and 1,941, 3,8S2, 5,823, 8,291, and 10,068 yards distant, respectively, from 
the eastern heading. Allowing one year for locating the tunnel, and one year additional for 
sinking shafts, it is estimated that it will be completed in four years without the use of a 
machine, and that its cost will be $130 per lineal foot in round numbers, or $420 per lineal 
yard. Total cost of the tunnel is estimated in round numbers at $5,000,000. 
The line to Seattle by the Snoqualme Pass will cost some seven millions less than the line to 
the same point by the Columbia river. 
The Columbia route from Seattle to the point of junction is estimated to rise seven hundred 
feet, and to fall three hundred. 
The Snoqualme route is estimated to rise in the aggregate for the long tunnel 2,500 feet, and 
to fall 2,100. Using the formula of Latrobe and Knight, engineers of the Baltimore and Ohio 
railroad : —— (R being the rise and F the fall,) the equated distance of the line by the Columbia 
river will be found by adding 19 miles to the measured distance of 395 miles, and that by the 
line of the Snoqualme Pass by adding 87 miles to the distance of 240 miles—both from the point 
where the two roads fork. Thus the equated distance of the two routes will be 414 and 327 
miles, a difference of 87 miles in favor of the Snoqualme route. With the use of the short 
tunnel, the difference will be 64 miles. Thus the time gained for passenger trains moving on 
level grades 30 miles an hour, will be three hours in favor of the Snoqualme route, and six hours 
for freight trains moving 15 miles an hour. With the short tunnel the gain will be two hours 
for passenger trains and four hours for freight trains. 
It is not believed that any difficulties will occur from snow which cannot easily be guarded 
against. The climate is mild, the temperature about the same with San Francisco; the harbors 
are not obstructed by ice, and at the summit level of the route of the Snoqualme Pass the climate 
is believed to be about the same with that of the summit level of the Portland and Montreal rail¬ 
road. In January of this year the snow in the pass was only six or seven feet deep for as many 
miles. For some forty additional miles the snow fell away in depth to less than two feet; it was 
in layers, very light, and would have offered no obstruction to the passage of cars. In the 
meteorological portion of the report, the subject will be discussed more at length. 
The deepest snow will be over the tunnel, and it will be easy to devise a suitable covering for 
the few miles from the entrance of the tunnel, which in some seasons may be obstructed. 
The general characteristics of the route of the Snoqualme Pass may be summed up as follows: 
The approach to this pass is by the valley of the Yakima, and the Columbia may be crossed 
anywhere within fifteen miles above the junction of these two rivers. The approaches to the 
Columbia are perfectly good, and its width about tour hundred yards. No material for building 
exists immediately at hand. Excellent yellow pine grows abundantly on the Yakima one hundred 
miles from its mouth, and can be floated down at high water with but little difficulty. 
Good granite was found by Captain McClellan on the Columbia, about one hundred and 
forty miles above the mouth of the Yakima; and Dr. Suckley reports excellent stone for building 
purposes on the whole line of the Columbia. 
