Disaster on Moffat Road

By Linda Jones

2/10/2005 - Sixty-one years ago a largely-forgotten disaster halted all rail traffic between Denver and the west coast via the strategic transcontinental link through James Peak. The timing couldn’t have been more unfortunate, for the Moffat Road was one of the continent’s most important links during WW II. The unfortunate episode did not occur where the government feared sabotage - in the 6.21 mile long Moffat Tunnel - but in one of the 33 tunnels between Denver and Rollinsville.

  Some background information will help the reader understand the importance of this vital link. The infant city of Denver almost disappeared overnight, moved building by building to Cheyenne, when the first transcontinental railroad was planned to go through that city. Farsighted Denver businessmen saved Denver by building a rail link north to Cheyenne, but it was David Moffat who pioneered an actual direct rail link to the west coast. His rail line over the Continental Divide at Rollins Pass was nearly 12,000 in elevation and snow removal on the portion above timberline ate nearly half his Denver, Northwestern and Pacific Railway Company’s budget. Snow covered the tracks above timberline from September to at least July. Huge snowsheds were built to cover the tracks and the Corona Station and Hotel at the summit. 

  The railroad cost millions and never produced a profit. It devoured Moffat’s considerable fortune. The company was then reorganized as the Denver and Salt Lake Railroad Company, and eventually Moffat’s dream of a tunnel under the Divide was accomplished when the Moffat Tunnel District formed in 1920. The District began construction in 1923 and the tunnel was completed four years later. Although the Moffat Tunnel cost $18,000,000 – and 19 lives – it shortened the line by 23 miles and cut the necessary time to cross James Peak from 2.5 hours to 12 minutes.

  The importance of this rail link for transporting servicemen and supplies during WW II can hardly be overstated. Old-timers in South Boulder Valley remember troops stationed at the East Portal 24 hours a day to prevent sabotage on this vital link. Yet it was an incident in a much shorter tunnel east of the Moffat Tunnel that closed the route for weeks.

  On September 20, 1943, a fire erupted in Tunnel # 10 and that event began a series of disasters in the 1,570-foot long bore. Three Denver firemen -John Kennedy, James Williams and D.V.Parrish - died fighting that fire, which was near the western portal of Tunnel # 10.                                                                                                             

  The next day a huge cave-in tumbled rocks as “big as a good-sized room” into the eastern portal of the roughly 1/3 mile long tunnel. When this area of the tunnel was judged free of gas, workmen were allowed in to muck out the collapsed area while the western portion still burned.

  “A mysterious resurgence of carbon monoxide gas” in that eastern portion caught the 12 workmen about 4:00 p.m. on September 29. Four had a very close brush with death and were only saved because oxygen was carried in a tank in a bunk car. According to E.A. West, “We were all inside the ‘clear’ end of the tunnel, working about 275 feet from the eastern portal, when we began to notice the gas. The first sensation is a prickly feeling on the back of your neck, followed by a dazed feeling and a terrific headache. We all ran for the entrance and emerged only to find that Darrel Armstrong [shift boss] and Michael Tilton were still inside.

  We ran back and dragged them out, and then Albert Neff [supervisor of work equipment] and another man started back into the tunnel to turn off a valve, and would only come out when I ran back and ordered them to leave. We found Tilton, who had helped drag one of the younger men out, sitting on a rock collapsed over the other man who was lying across his knees. Neff, too, was staggering and barely able to hold his feet.

  Luckily we had brought a bunk car, where a warm fire and a tank of oxygen were waiting. Artificial respiration and the oxygen brought most of them around, but Armstrong and Tilton were in convulsions by the time we raced the car to the Union Station and transferred the men to ambulances.” Neff, Armstrong, Tilton and Jean Holland were kept under oxygen tents at St. Joseph’s Hospital and eventually recovered.

  The gas and the still-burning fire near the west portal posed major difficulties in reopening the clogged tunnel for the passage of war freight. Smoke and gases continued to rise from burning timber and debris and from fallen rock heaped six feet deep on the floor of the passage. A large mine blower was kept operating to provide fresh air, but workmen were unable to enter the western portion. The “red glow of fire is still visible in crevices between the rocks, and the surface is so hot that it burned off the boot soles of men who walked into it a short way,” West told The Denver Post.

  Tunnel experts couldn’t explain the carbon monoxide gas appearance, but Denver Fire Chief Healy ventured that the gas seeped through the rocks and had been sucked toward the eastern portal by a change in barometric pressure. Water proved problematic also. The portal is 200 feet above the streambed, and water to fight the fire had to be brought in tank cars. The intense heat continued to shale off the rock and the “rock itself appears to be smoldering.” John Austin, a respected Colorado tunnel builder, pronounced the tunnel fire one of the most difficult on record.

  Ever optimistic, the press declared on October 1 that train service on the Denver & Salt Lake Railroad would be canceled for two weeks while repair crews worked their way slowly into #10. Not only were timbers still smoldering, but the bodies of two of the three firemen killed the week prior had not been recovered.

  But six weeks later, a clipping reveals that a crew of 100 men were engaged in clearing Tunnel #10 and approximately 85’ of collapsed area remained to be cleared. “Workmen were on the watch for the bodies of James Williams of Central City and John Kennedy. A nozzle and a piece of hose were all that they’d found of the fire-fighting apparatus being used by that crew.”

  Then 11 days later, “The body of one of the three firemen who had lost their lives in the collapse of the railway tunnel was found and it was believed that the body of James Williams of Central City would be found soon. The tunnel was almost completely re-timbered. It was expected to open again for regular traffic within a few days.”

  Finally on December 1, the body of Williams was recovered from under hundreds of tons of dirt. The Central City Register Call reported that “The large number of friends that attended the services attested to the esteem in which he was held.”

  And by mid-December the Moffat Road was again connecting the two coasts of America.