Explore the November 1923 progress at the Moffat Tunnel, from mess halls and bonuses to timbering challenges and equipment orders.
Moffat Tunnel Construction Happenings from 100 Years Ago
The final few weeks of the year have always revolved around food, so it’s only fitting this installment begins with a mention of food and mess halls during the Moffat Tunnel’s construction.
In November 1923 at West Portal, the mess hall was run by E.B. Ballance, “an experienced man in his line, and if any one kicks on the grub you can set it down that he never had half as good at home.” Nearby, a fine root cellar was “filled with a car load of Routt county spuds.”
Other stories relate that prior to the start of a shift, workers would go to the cafeteria and fill their lunchboxes—some with sandwiches, but many others would take “fix or six pieces of pie and nothing else or perhaps as many pieces of cake.”
Included in this post is a look at the mess hall at West Portal, capable of holding 350 people. Meanwhile, five bunkhouses had been built and a sixth was nearing completion. Tool sharpening shops had been up and running. Earlier in the month, the Colorado Power company lines were successfully run to both portals.
November 1923 was also the month a substantial amount of equipment was ordered that would arrive at the start of 1924: twelve electric locomotives from General Electric and dump cars for transporting rock and dirt as well as two Osgood steam shovels. Blowers for the ventilating system were ordered (this is different from the ventilation system currently in place at East Portal), as well as air compressors and transformers. Two Marmon touring cars were also sold to the Moffat Tunnel Commission. In the meanwhile, horses and gasoline-powered compressors were used.
A new bonus structure was put in place to incentivize speed: engineers estimated the progress that could be made in an 8-hour shift and at the conclusion of the shift, if the workers exceeded the estimation, a bonus was divided among those on the shift.
Progress at the East Portal was good—solid rock aligned with both engineering and geology expectations. Danger lurked from within, however: November was the first time that “soft rock” was not only mentioned, but also impeded progress at the West Portal. The teams were about 500 feet into the pioneer bore when timbering was required to keep the tunnel from caving in on itself. This would prove more and more problematic. Had money been no object, diamond drills would have tested substrata. In 1922, all that could be afforded were a few test pits at West Portal. It was thought that hard rock was being located, but only after excavation was it determined that the test pits were finding huge boulders and not the solid rock core they were expecting. This lead to F.C. Hitchcock’s classic remark, “it seems the softest part of the Rocky Mountains is in the middle.” Progress at the West Portal was now constrained to how quickly timbering could be placed to hold the pressure along the roof and walls.
B. Travis Wright, MPS | Preserve Rollins Pass | November 29, 2023
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