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Trains go Four Wheeling!
- Garlic Pete
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1 year 4 months ago #243
by Garlic Pete
Trains go Four Wheeling! was created by Garlic Pete
This video has some Caterpillar equipment in it, to keep us legal!
In 1978, the Island Mountain Tunnel on the Northwestern Pacific Railroad burned and mostly collapsed. This tunnel was nearly a mile long and was located between Sonoma and Eureka on California's North Coast.
When the tunnel collapsed it severed the connection from Eureka south, isolating many railcars and a dozen or more locomotives, mostly Southern Pacific SD-9 "Cadillacs". Northwestern Pacific was a wholly owned subsidiary of Southern Pacific.
1978 and 1979 were boom times for the railroads with an extreme power shortage. Locomotive manufacturers had multi-year order backlogs. Once the tunnel cooled off and the railroad brass was able to inspect it, they concluded that reconstruction would take more than a year.
Southern Pacific couldn't afford to have those locomotives out of service, so they explored all manner of solutions, including a car ferry service from Eureka down to San Francisco. In the end, they decided to transport the locomotives and a bunch of cars overland to the south side of the tunnel to get them back in service.
Bigge Crane and Rigging was hired to do the transport. I believe they are still in existence today. The locomotives had their trucks and fuel tanks removed for the trip. Each truck weighed between 50,000 and 60,000 pounds, but the stripped locomotives were still over 300,000 pounds each. Caltrans wouldn't allow the locomotives to travel over Highway 101 because they were too heavy for the many bridges.
Bigge developed a back road, mostly dirt road, routing which worked, but has to be one of the most unconventional over the road transport routes of a heavy haul load ever attempted.
The video at the below link is a bit over thirty minutes of 8MM silent footage, probably shot by a Bigge employee. The video is hosted by the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento.
I just love this video, it captures such a moment in time, with the operators smoking cigarettes, taking responsibility for their own safety, no hard hats, steel toes, it was up to each guy what they thought they needed. Horn rimmed glasses and probably a cold beer or two in the lunchbox to get you through the day!
Enjoy!
Pete.
californiarevealed.org/do/3602491b-bbd8-4cf6-b034-37af74bf7c34
In 1978, the Island Mountain Tunnel on the Northwestern Pacific Railroad burned and mostly collapsed. This tunnel was nearly a mile long and was located between Sonoma and Eureka on California's North Coast.
When the tunnel collapsed it severed the connection from Eureka south, isolating many railcars and a dozen or more locomotives, mostly Southern Pacific SD-9 "Cadillacs". Northwestern Pacific was a wholly owned subsidiary of Southern Pacific.
1978 and 1979 were boom times for the railroads with an extreme power shortage. Locomotive manufacturers had multi-year order backlogs. Once the tunnel cooled off and the railroad brass was able to inspect it, they concluded that reconstruction would take more than a year.
Southern Pacific couldn't afford to have those locomotives out of service, so they explored all manner of solutions, including a car ferry service from Eureka down to San Francisco. In the end, they decided to transport the locomotives and a bunch of cars overland to the south side of the tunnel to get them back in service.
Bigge Crane and Rigging was hired to do the transport. I believe they are still in existence today. The locomotives had their trucks and fuel tanks removed for the trip. Each truck weighed between 50,000 and 60,000 pounds, but the stripped locomotives were still over 300,000 pounds each. Caltrans wouldn't allow the locomotives to travel over Highway 101 because they were too heavy for the many bridges.
Bigge developed a back road, mostly dirt road, routing which worked, but has to be one of the most unconventional over the road transport routes of a heavy haul load ever attempted.
The video at the below link is a bit over thirty minutes of 8MM silent footage, probably shot by a Bigge employee. The video is hosted by the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento.
I just love this video, it captures such a moment in time, with the operators smoking cigarettes, taking responsibility for their own safety, no hard hats, steel toes, it was up to each guy what they thought they needed. Horn rimmed glasses and probably a cold beer or two in the lunchbox to get you through the day!
Enjoy!
Pete.
californiarevealed.org/do/3602491b-bbd8-4cf6-b034-37af74bf7c34
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