Western Railroad Discussion > Inside ex-NWP Tunnel 4 after seismic stabilization- NOW & then

The original Puerto Suello Hill tunnel was drilled in 1878 and was the link that connected Southern Marin County with North marin and Sonoma County.  It was a conventional redowood timber lined bore and served the NWP well in the 20th Century. The north and southends of the tunnel were concreted in 1951.   The first image shows the stamped date at the top of the crown. In July of 1961, two local teenagers from San rafael set three fire inside the tunnel on San rafael side.  About the same time, A B and B gang along with a supervisor were inspected the tunnel and came upon the first two fires and were able to put them out. The third fire had spread to the timbers, being fanned by south winds blowing downhill thru tunnel.  The fire burned the middle 900 feet of the tunnel and the first 200 feet under Lincoln Avenue collapsed.  A fire truck and firefighter from Corte Madera, helping the fight the inferno with SRFD was killed when the tunnel colapsed.  NWP immediately filed for abandonment with the ICC. The State and the County filed suit along with the PUC and ICC. The case wound through the courts for five years before the ICC prevailed. SP brought in Morrison-Knudsen Const. to rebuild the tunnel and in September of 1967, the tunnel, now concrete lined was reopened.  SMART engineers inspected the tunnel and found voids above the tember sets. A tunnel contractor was hired to fill the voids, do the drainage work and install standpipe fire systems.  The next two images show the drainage work on the north end of the tunnel. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/15 23:39 by weather.

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Interesting post.

The rail is all in and the ROW and road bed has been tamped, aligned and manicure. Here is a image showing the newly installed fire-fightning system.  They also instaled lighting inside the 1357 foot bore.

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A few more shots of the ROW from the tunnel south to San Pedro Ave.  Cerro was the name of the spur on the south end were helpers were stationed.  The grade is 1.8%  You can also see the super elevation on the last picture.  Text and photos by Mike Pechner

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Here is the San Rafael local just entering the north end of the Puerto Suello Tunnel in the summer of 1977.  The image shows the terain ready to cross San Pedro Road.

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they better hope there's good drainage in that tunnel and any others outfitted with concrete ties ... nice images ...

Not very familiar with this line. Where did it start and end at? Who has owned or operated over it? What kind of traffic frequency and commodities ? Any info or pics would be swell. Thank You!

Posted from iPhone

dynamicbrakeman Wrote:
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> Not very familiar with this line. Where did it
> start and end at? Who has owned or operated over
> it? What kind of traffic frequency and commodities
> ? Any info or pics would be swell. Thank You!
>
> Posted from iPhone

Google NorthWestern Pacific and all will be told.

The line was operated by Northwestern Pacific (NWP), a subsidiary of Southern Pacific Railroad, many years ago.

The line is currently the domain of Sonoma MArin Rail Transit (SMART). 

No train frequency as the line is not currently in service, but service is planned to commence in late 2016.

Link to the SMART website.

http://sonomamarintrain.org/

SMART currently has four DMU units on the property with more on order.

Hope that gives you some answers to your questions.

Bob


dynamicbrakeman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Not very familiar with this line. Where did it
> start and end at? Who has owned or operated over
> it? What kind of traffic frequency and commodities
> ? Any info or pics would be swell. Thank You!
>
> Posted from iPhone

dynamicbrakeman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Not very familiar with this line. Where did it
> start and end at? Who has owned or operated over
> it? What kind of traffic frequency and commodities
> ? Any info or pics would be swell. Thank You!
>
> Posted from iPhone


Well, it started at the ferry building in San Francisco or perhaps the mysterious MP of the SP, wherever that is. In any event, ferries connected San Francisco to terminals in Tiburon and Sausalito, both in the MP 6 range, and from there the two branches headed north through tunnels to meet at Detour in Corte Madera/Larkspur area. Very close to the famous Dirty Harry trestle that he jumped off of to save the school children in the bus from the Scorpio killer in the movies. From there the line ran through San Rafael and the tunnel in this thread and north to Novato where there was a wye. One leg headed east toward Schellville which was the old connection with the SP and the national rail system. The other leg in Novato headed north all the way up to Eureka, with several branch lines to serve logging and lumber mills along the way. 

Ferries abandoned in 1941. Passenger service ended with Amtrak. Sausalito-Detour abandoned 1971. Detour-Tiburon abandoned 1967. Detour-the wye was in service until 1985 when it was finally killed off by the NWP, who had watched their customers pretty much disappear--the business was all based on construction industry and the county was built out mostly by the 80s.

1984-1988 saw the SP sell off/lease parts of the line, finally selling all of the south end to a joint powers board that ultimately became SMART, the commuter railroad that will be using DMUs to run from Santa Rosa to San Rafael. SMART owns MP70 southward I think. North of that the line is owned by a state agency that has the right run freight over the SMART line, although not south of the wye on the San Rafael branch. The state agency has a deal with an operator known as NWP Co. that serves customers in Sonoma. They provide grain to feed mills and the Lagunitas Beer Making Company. They have a lumber shipper and a pallet customer that gets lumber.
 

atsf19455 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> dynamicbrakeman Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Not very familiar with this line. Where did it
> > start and end at? Who has owned or operated
> over
> > it? What kind of traffic frequency and
> commodities
> > ? Any info or pics would be swell. Thank You!
> >
> > Posted from iPhone
>

>
> Ferries abandoned in 1941. Passenger service ended
> with Amtrak. 

Passenger service ended in 1969. There had been tri-weekly RDC service to Eureka. 

The Wikipedia article,as suggested by another poster, offers a wealth of information. I'd recommend one of the books listed in the bibliography, Redwood Railways by Kneiss. I used to have a copy of this and it's quite good. I think there is also a book about railroiads on the North Coast by Stindt, but not the one listed in the bibliography, which I am not familiar with.

I arrived in Sonoma Co. in 1971 and over the next few years had great fun tracing the ROW of the former NWP and North Pacific Coast lines. I knew a woman who lived near Guerneville and who would recall the glory days when the NWP would bring people from the Bay Area to vacation along the Russian River. She also had lived for a time in San Anselmo and used the NWP commuter service to get to the ferries in Sausalito to get to work. About 30 years ago I purchased the reverser key used on the last run of that service, or at least that's what the info written on a baggage tag alleged. 

By way of a bit of trivia, the NWP station in Santa Rosa is featured in the final scenes of the movie Shadow of a Doubt, one of my favorite Hitchcock films. 

Nice report Mike. It looks a whole bunch better than it did in 2008. Here is thread from back then when I walked the ROW for Tunnel 4 to Novato
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,1835374,1835374#msg-1835374

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Dave, many thanks for adding this.  Great pics and commentary.  Tunnel #4 will be a very inviting short cut for young folks who don't drive between San Rafael and Terra Linda.

colehour Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> atsf19455 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > dynamicbrakeman Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > Not very familiar with this line. Where did
> it
> > > start and end at? Who has owned or operated
> > over
> > > it? What kind of traffic frequency and
> > commodities
> > > ? Any info or pics would be swell. Thank You!
> > >
> > > Posted from iPhone
> >
>
> >
> > Ferries abandoned in 1941. Passenger service
> ended
> > with Amtrak. 
>
> Passenger service ended in 1969. There had been
> tri-weekly RDC service to Eureka. 
>
> The Wikipedia article,as suggested by another
> poster, offers a wealth of information. I'd
> recommend one of the books listed in the
> bibliography, Redwood Railways by Kneiss. I used
> to have a copy of this and it's quite good. I
> think there is also a book about railroiads on the
> North Coast by Stindt, but not the one listed in
> the bibliography, which I am not familiar with.
>
> I arrived in Sonoma Co. in 1971 and over the next
> few years had great fun tracing the ROW of the
> former NWP and North Pacific Coast lines. I knew a
> woman who lived near Guerneville and who would
> recall the glory days when the NWP would bring
> people from the Bay Area to vacation along the
> Russian River. She also had lived for a time in
> San Anselmo and used the NWP commuter service to
> get to the ferries in Sausalito to get to work.
> About 30 years ago I purchased the reverser key
> used on the last run of that service, or at least
> that's what the info written on a baggage tag
> alleged. 
>
> By way of a bit of trivia, the NWP station in
> Santa Rosa is featured in the final scenes of the
> movie Shadow of a Doubt, one of my favorite
> Hitchcock films. 

Passenger service ended in 1971 with Amtrak.. Fall 1970 it went bi-weekly