Re: C & C (SP) Narrow Gauge Then & Now photos #22

My 6 week road trip will not cover C&C territory, but I may go back to that area this fall.
Some other interesting tidbits about this photo: The original Toll Road is faintly visile at the bottom of the canyon in the "Then" shot. It followed the bottom of the canyon up to the top of the pass with very little apparent earthwork and predates the railroad (probably constructed in the 1870's) This original toll road is washed out in many places. The ruins of the Toll House are located about 1/2 mile upgrade from this location. This original Toll Road was replaced by a better road that crosses the railroad grade on the far side of the rr fill in the foreground. Later the highway moved to the near side of the fill (possibly to avoid crossing the railroad at the mouth of the cut). At some point this newer highway was paved. Finally the road was built up on the hillside to level the grade over the pass. This hillside route has since been improved numerous times. Quite a bit of change in 140 years!
In addition, the large fill was a scheduled 10 minute stopping point for down grade trains to cool the brakes from the 2.5% grade. A couple of my "Then and Now" photo sets have been of trains doing just that.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/02/2010 09:49AM by Dave Peterson.