California Zephyr weird rail route

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Mr2nr

Train Attendant
Joined
Oct 21, 2018
Messages
43
Location
Missouri
All right who can tell me why the rail does this on the CZ in between Oasis and West Wendover in Nevada? I'm bored :). I was thinking maybe a mine or something but Google earth doesn't really show any buildings so who knows?

I see another one by Tucker point south of Salt Lake. So what are these?

RailCZ.png
 
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Silver Zone Pass.  Trains cannot go up near as steep a grade as highways (2% is a stiff grade for a train.  3% mainline grades are few and far between).  Rails wind around in mountains to keep the grade low.

Silver Zone is on the former WP, which kept to a 1% grade.
 
The Silver Zone Pass horseshoe is visible from Interstate-80. Unless CZ is very late, it always does the loop in darkness.
 
Some of the more interesting trackage is no longer in use as it has been replaced by tunnels.  Here highlighted in green is the original route over Stevens Pass in Eastern Washington state later replaced by a series of Cascade Tunnels, the longest (#2) now used by the Empire Builder:

WASkykomish1905,05Snapj.jpg

This next one, highlighted in blue, is the circuitous route replaced by the Moffat Tunnel on the route of the California Zephyr:

Map Original Route & Moffat Tunneld.jpg

For those who understand topographic maps, the reasons for a strangely shaped route segment becomes crystal clear.
 
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The route of the California Zephyr has a lot of tunnels, but they're spread out over a fairly long stretch of track.  Even though this route segment in North Carolina is no longer used for passenger service, it's literally infested with tunnels.  

NCAltapassNorthCovec.jpg

Anybody know of any other stretch of track with such a dense concentration of tunnels?
 
At one time the rathole between Cincinnati and Knoxville on the Southern. It was called the rathole because of the amount of tunnels.
Did this route go down through Covington, Berry, Winchester,  Corbin, La Follette and Rocky Top?

Redacted
 
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Some of the more interesting trackage is no longer in use as it has been replaced by tunnels.  Here highlighted in green is the original route over Stevens Pass in Eastern Washington state later replaced by a series of Cascade Tunnels, the longest (#2) now used by the Empire Builder:

View attachment 12274

This next one, highlighted in blue, is the circuitous route replaced by the Moffat Tunnel on the route of the California Zephyr:

View attachment 12277

For those who understand topographic maps, the reasons for a strangely shaped route segment becomes crystal clear.
One conductor out of Denver described the pre-Moffat route as the "kind of like a Jacob's Ladder configuration"
 
Did this route go down through Covington, Berry, Winchester,  Corbin, La Follette and Rocky Top?
Disregard.  Googled up a 1921 Southern Rwy map and it seem like a significant portion of that route doesn't show up on recent topographic maps.  And searching the USGS Historical Map Collection for older maps is too much of a strain on my old eyes.
 
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