The Cascade Tunnel: Longest in the Nation
Near Stevens Pass Area, Washington
Just west of Stevens Pass, a train vanishes into the mountain and does not emerge for nearly eight miles. This is the Cascade Tunnel, and since it opened in early nineteen twenty nine it has been the longest railroad tunnel in the United States. Bored straight through the granite spine of the Cascades, it runs about seven and eight tenths miles from portal to portal, and for sixty years, until nineteen eighty nine, it was the longest tunnel in the entire Western Hemisphere.
The Great Northern Railway dug it in roughly three years at enormous cost for the time. The reason was snow. The older, higher line over the pass had been buried again and again by winter storms, most terribly at Wellington in nineteen ten.
By diving deep beneath the crest, the new tunnel let trains avoid the worst of the avalanche country altogether. It was dedicated in a radio broadcast in January of nineteen twenty nine. Freight trains still rumble through it today, and because diesel exhaust can choke the long bore, giant fans flush the tunnel clear between crossings.
