As far as "Plate "C" restictions, I don't think they ever finished Tunnel 13. You could still stick your hand out the window at Hilt and it would trip the high-wide scanner. Was told there was only around 6 inches to clear an engine that was equiped with an AC unit on the cab roof.

Tunnel 14 is on a curve. (there is a long,tall steel bridge before 14 that you could see from I-5 but it is overgrown now and hard to spot.) Going east (north) you would come around a left hand corner, over part of Tunnel 15, and then straight, into Tunnel 14. Before you went into the tunnel, you could look down on the signals and track where you would be in a few minutes, going the other way. Some of the tunnel walls were solid rock, some with timbers. About 5 to 10 cars in, the track would take a sharpe curve to the right. It would continue to the east portal, still curving until it almost completed 180 degrees. By then you could look up and see the rear porition of your train going into the tunnel. About that time, you were looking at Tunnel 15. It had been rebuilt with steel bents and was ready for any cars. There was a tunnel gang assigned to the area, just to keep up with the work that needed to be done.

The wood bents in Tunnel 13 were the old style. They looked something like a coffin. The top was a short beam, then a 45 degree bent on either side and then another bent slanted in, down to the track structure. I know when they were working on the tunnels on Cuesta grade, they would pull out old wood bents and replace them with pre-fab steel bents. After they had enough of them up and blocked & screened, they would shot-crete everything. The old wood bents, redwood, would be loaded into a gon and sent north. They used them to replace the old bents that had rotted at the bottom. The bents from Cuesta were longer so all they had to do was cut off a little of the base that was also a bit rotted and it would slide right in. Just past the east end of Tunnel 14, towards 15, is where all the old timbers were dumped over the edge. Its steep and there are a lot of them down there from over the years. There is no way to get them out except by rail and the expence would not make it worth it. Most of these are redwood and are just covered with smoke, no creasote. They are massive.

When I went to Dunsmuir, they put me and others that followed on a special board where we were paid the engineers rate and worked a pool in order to be qualified. We had all been working as engineers on our old districts and some of us were already used to working grade territory. When I took my check ride for the Siskiyous, the RFE was waiting up at Tunnel 13 to ride with me down to Hornbrook. Coming out of Tunnel 15, my engineer, Gary Welborn, went out the door and dropped off without a word. He walked up to the west mouth of Tunnel 14 and was waiting there for me. The speed was 10 mph thru 14, so he swung up and we kept going. He came back into the cab and said, "I always wanted to to do that." There were a nice set of steps in the hillside and it was an easy walk. He kept the RFE busy talking about hunting, etc as we went down the other side.


Nudge