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

The Grande doesn't seem to have had the problems here that we had. That 1/2 mile from the west switch at Cresco all the way around "the point" below 336 was a mess. The geology is nothing but clay alluvium that has slid off the above mountains for a million years or so. Not much in the way of solid rock at all. Further down from Cresco is where "Kyle's Kink was formed, created by the same situation - the highway destroying the natural drainage on the hill. The highway iteslf was not immune to he problem, and faced either minor to major rebuilding of he highway every spring. A few times they gave up and we had a one-lane road up there all summer, because the northbound lane simply slid down the hill and disappeared. Eventually, the highway departments of both states re-graded the ditches on the uphill side of the road, and got the water to flow under the road and down the hill as nature intended. At that point, the railroad's problems were reduced dramatically. The soft soil will always be an issue, but now its much better.

I suppose we should count ourselves lucky as this was the only place of chronic trouble on the entire railroad. We could have been fighting this at Toltec Creek every spring.