State Line Fill - A headache for the D&RGW and C&TS

Seeing Olaf's pics of 498 dumping cinders on the fill just north of the State line at the south switch of Cresco Siding reminded me of the constant battle we had every spring at this spot.

Olaf's pics:
[ngdiscussion.net]

Every spring throughout the 1980's and into the 1990's, we had a repair job to be made on this fill. We always blamed the problem on the highway above the track, but seeing Olaf's pic make we wonder.... Had the reconstruction of Highway 17 reached down to this area in 1967? When the road was rebuilt, it was raised several feet, and re-graded to almost flat. This severely disrupted the natural flow of runoff water. Before, the spring runoff from melting snow ran down the hill, hit the old road, either went across the road, or down hill to a handy culvert and went under the road. The runoff continued down the hill, and through a couple of culverts in the railroad fill and down into the valley.

With the reconstruction of the highway, the runoff water came down the hill to the ditch by the flat road, and simply soaked in.... and came out again at the railroad track, saturating the fill and causing it to settle. Some years it dropped a few inches, which got taken care of by running a few cars of cinders up the hill with diesel #19.

Other years, like 1985, it was a REAL mess, dropping as much as three feet in the center..




notice Russ has no feet. That's how much the fill has settled.


Ties dangling in the air. there was water oozing out of the fill beneath them...