Colleagues,In addition to the several very tall trestles on the Milwaukee Road line over St.Paul Pass, there were a much larger number of what they referred to as "water tunnels". These were mineature tunnels, some as much as 275ft. in length through the base of the fills. In the course of the year, most of the moisture at these upper levels fell as snow, from late Sept. through March, and then it melted. Just east of Tunnel 22, lay DD-214, a 260' tunnel, 6' wide, by 6.5' high, and tonight we can see that there has been a hemongous washout and repairs are being rushed to completion.Well, not quite - I have depressed the fill, using a 250m piece of road section, tilted to match the gradient of the slope, so that a ditch, if you will, is formed with a flat bottom, and the "tunnel" has been laid in place. Now, I will add 3 berm pieces and adjust the height, by trial and error to match the track level and thus fill the gap. Wonderful tool, that TSM.But wait - 15 years after the last train passed this way, a heavy rainstorm in the fall of 1995, shoved lots of debri down the ravine, clogging the tunnel. A lake was formed, which eventually collapsed the fill, taking most of it clear down to the valley floor, and blocking the road there. The hiking trail has been built around this fill. So a washout did occur here - long after the last Hiawatha had passed.J. H. Sullivan
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