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Show Finally on 9 March, the first train arrived at Wellington, coming from th< east. It took until 12 March to open the line westward to Scenic. But the battle was not completely won - fate still had one final blow. On the morning of the 13th another avalanche fell just west of Windy Point, sweeping a rotary train into the canyon below, killing one man. The route was soon cleared again, and then remained open. TERRAIN The slope above the trains was about 2,000 feet in length. It was another 150 feet from the tracks down to the river. The slope had been burned over by a forest fire, leaving very weak anchors for the snow. COMMENTS Since the building of the railroad, a slide had not been known to run in this particular location. As many people sadly find out, a climax avalanche may occur only once in one or two hundred years. Mother Nature had given a number of ominous warnings - a very severe winter storm with excessive snowfall and winds - numerous avalanches occuring along the railway route - and finally a rapid warming of slopes already overloaded. Couple these factors with a sparsely timbered mountain slope, and it is clear the odds were overwhelmingly in favor of an avalanche occuring. But the warnings were ignored, a risk taken, and disaster resulted. The Cascade Tunnel is now closed, and all remains of the town of Wellington ( or Tye as it was later called) are now gone. The summer after the tragedy, the railroad spent 1^ million dollars building an additional mile of snowsheds. In 1929, the Great Northern railroad gave up on this Stevens Pass route, bored an 8- mile tunnel lower in the mountain, and relocated some 40 miles of track. Note: The most authentic account of this tragedy is the book " Northwest Disaster, Avalanche and Fire" by Ruby El Hult. Her source was personal interviews of those present and newspaper accounts. The above summary is based on her book. |
