Re: Monarch Pass

Actually if you check out Jimmy Blouch's old posts you'll find the Monarch Branch running regularly in Winter back in the 1930's and 1940's.
The quotes that started me thinking on this:
"...the surveys which Weitbrec conducted during the Summer of 1880 showed the two passes to be remarkably similar. Based on estimates by James McMurtie, the chief engineer, the distance from Salida to Gunnison over Monarch Pass would be eighty-six and one-half miles while over Marshall Pass would be eighty-seven miles. Costs, which included grading and bridge construction, would run #1,133,250 over Monarch Pass and $1,223,750 over Marshall Pass."
"...McMurties estimates for Monarch showed its maximum grade to be 211 feet per mile, the same as on Marshall Pass, ..."
-_Marshall Pass_ by Borneman, pg 26
Borneman lists his source for this as:
Construction Records, Robert F. Weitbrec Colection, Colorado State Historical Society, File Folder 13, Notebook 6, pp 111-12.
So the question remains: why did the Monarch brach wind up being constructed so much more steeply, and with switchback, only a few years later?
hank