Re: Photo of tunnel linking Rockwood & Lizard Head?

Beauthelab Wrote:
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> Looks like the secret connection of the D&RG and
> The RGS between Silverton and Telluride . . .


Ah yes, Beau -

You're thinking of the 'Durango, Trout Lake & Telluride', a line that Fritz and Roosso were promoting during the real estate boom of the mid-1920's.  This RR would have started at the tail of the D&RG wye in Rockwood - not Silverton - and looped a bit to gain altitude and then run along the hillside and passed just below the lake that supplies water to the power plant at Tacoma, and on up to about where the ski resort is now located.  It would then have crossed to the northeast side of Cascade Creek and headed northwest until re-crossing the creek just below the big waterfall, on a long trestle curving to the southwest.  The line would then have taken advantage of the gently sloping strata heading southwest from the falls until high enough to enter a 3/4-mile curved tunnel under Sliderock Ridge, from which it would have descended generally northwest - although with a lot of curves and small trestles - until reaching the tail of the RGS wye at Lizard Head Pass.   There's just one problem with your guess, though - the tunnel at the summit of the DTL&T would have been curved - not straight as in the above photo - with the east portal facing north-northeast and the west portal facing north-northwest.

- Sincerely, Willie  (Wm. Claude Johnson-Barr III, Esq.)  
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