Facts and Figures Concerning the Hoosac Tunnel

by John J. Piper

In the middle of the tunnel line beneath the rails, there is made at the same time with the excavation, a covered way or drain, in which are laid the pipes for gas, water, and compressed air. By this drain the waste water runs off, and it is also intended to serve as a means of escape for the workmen, in case of a fall of rock, or other accident which might block up the tunnel. Of course the tunnel must be continually supplied with fresh air along its whole length, as well as at the heading. This is easily done from the compressed air tube in the covered drain.

The whole length of the Mt. Cenis tunnel is through rock varying in hardness, and veined throughout with quartz. In many parts it is liable to flake off, and in some places considerable masses have broken away during the construction. The full section of the tunnel is twenty-six feet and three inches wide, and twenty feet and eight inches high. The heading is carried forward about eleven and a half feet wide and nearly ten feet high. At the time of Mr. Storrow's visit the drilling machines were used only in the heading. The whole of the enlargement was done by hand labor in the ordinary way. The drills when brought up to the work drill eighty holes before any blasting is done. About ninety workmen are employed at each end. It required from five to seven hours to drill the eighty holes. Mr. Storrow visited a workshop where some machines were ready, and a large block of stone was placed in front of them for trial. The air was let on and a drill put in motion. In 6 1-2 minutes it drilled 5 1-2 inches. The engineer stated that they would make better progress than that at the rock in the tunnel. The average progress made by hand was about sixty-six feet a month. That rate was about doubled by means of the machines; but since Mr. Storrow's visit these machines have been greatly improved, and the rate of progress latterly has been about two hundred feet a month.

The opening of the Mt. Cenis Tunnel was commenced in October, 1857. Up to July, 1861, about 2142 feet had been excavated, the average progress being about sixty-six feet a month. The machines were then introduced, and at the present time, upwards of three miles have been excavated, and at the rate of progress now being made the tunnel will be completed in four years. Mr. Storrow's estimate of its cost is $640 per running yard.

We have now placed before our readers such facts in relation to European tunnels, and more particularly in relation to that under the Alps, as will enable them to judge for themselves of the feasibility of completing the Hoosac Tunnel, and of the weight of the objections which are urged against it by the opponents of the enterprise, as well as the nature of the obstacles which have been encountered, and the means of surmounting them. We shall next present a brief history of the work, the progress made, the delays which have occurred, and the causes; and the sources, nature, and motives of the opposition which has been made to it. In the course of this history we shall have occasion to expose the gross misrepresentations and deliberate falsehoods which have, from time to time, been put in print and scattered broadcast throughout the State, for the purpose of sustaining and extending a great railroad monopoly, already too powerful, against the vital interests and actual necessities of the Commonwealth.

The first section of the Tunnel Line obtained its charter in 1842, under an act incorporating the Fitchburg Railroad Company, in spite of the strenuous opposition from Boston, Springfield, Pittsfield, and the whole power of the Western Road, which a few years before, had only obtained its charter by the aid of some twenty-five members of the House, from Northern Massachusetts, who held the balance of power. Of these twenty-five gentlemen, to whom the State was thus early indebted, one was Hon. Alvah Crocker, of Fitchburg, whose name in connection with the Fitchburg, the Vermont and Massachusetts, the Troy and Greenfield roads, and with the Hoosac Tunnel, has since become "familiar as household words." The appeal of the late Judge Kinnicut, one of the pioneers of the Western line, contains this passage: "Assume if you please, that your route is better than the Southern or Western one; if you are willing to identify the Commonwealth with such an enterprise, you establish a precedent, and the Commonwealth, to be just, to be consistent with herself, must aid you in like manner. Nay, every other section. She will never be partial, as you suppose, but fair to all. She will certainly go as far as she safely can, to develop and increase her growth." Such appeals could not but prevail with fair minded men, and these twenty-five members, with a spirit of liberality and almost of self sacrifice, which should put to shame the narrow minded and selfish policy of the Western Railroad Company in regard to the Tunnel line, gave their voices and votes in favor of an enterprise, the commencement of which would otherwise have been deferred for years. The result was that by the first of January, 1843, the receipts of money by the Western Eailroad Company, from the stock and scrip of the state amounted to $5,565,610.86.

As stated above, the Fitchburg Railroad Company was authorized to build a road from Boston to Fitchburg, a distance of fifty miles, in spite of the strenuous opposition of the managers and attorneys of the Western Line. The intelligent legislator of 1866, who has passed over the Fitchburg Railroad, and observed the numerous trains of passenger and freight cars which daily follow each other over its double line of track, can but smile at the language of Mr Mills, a senator from Hampden, a little more than twenty years ago "Sir," said this zealous legislator, who, in his style and logic forcibly remind us of Mr. Bird, of Walpole, "a six horse stage coach and a few baggage wagons will draw all the freight from Fitchburg to Boston."

It is hardly necessary to give details of the history of the Vermont and Massachusetts Road, and the struggles of its projectors against hostile legislation, and the intensified opposition of the Western line. Suffice it to say that this second section of the Tunnel Line, extending from Fitchburg to Greenfield, was commenced and finished, in spite of all opposition, without a dollar of that aid which Mr. Kinnicut said the State would have to furnish in order to be just and consistent. Its stock, which could be bought for $9 a share, ten years ago, now commands upwards of $40. Its gross receipts, last year, were $390,085.79, and its net income, $91,229.85. Its debt has been reduced from upwards of a million to one half that sum, and this year it has paid its first dividend.

The Troy and Greenfield Road was chartered in 1848, the same old elements of opposition being combined against, and fighting it at every step. The managers of the Western road clamorously declared that if this competing line were chartered, it would greatly diminish the security of the Commonwealth, for its investment in their road, and that if the State should be compelled to sell its stock after the granting of such charter, she would lose a hundred and seventy thousand dollars; while, at the same time, they affected to deride the Vermont and Massachusetts as a "pauper road," and the region it traversed as a "God-forsaken country!"

In 1858, the Western end of the Tunnel Line, extending from the Western base of the Hoosac Mountain to Troy, had been completed through the enterprise of the citizens of that thriving city and those of North Adams. The Vermont and Massachusetts was finished, and only thirty-seven miles of rail were needed to complete the direct connection of Boston with the Great West. Then was the time and opportunity for the State to have continued the same liberal policy which it had adopted toward the Western road, and to have extended her helping hand to the struggling corporation, which had undertaken the noble enterprise of piercing the barrier which was interposed between them and their "promised land." But their appeals for aid were met with sneers and derision; the work was bitterly opposed at every stage of its progress; the arts of demagogues, the cunning of lawyers, the fears of the timid, the credulity of the ignorant, and every conceivable influence which the well-filled treasury of the Western road could purchase were enlisted and combined against it. But, at last, perseverance and a good cause prevailed, and in 1854, the Legislature authorized a loan of the State credit to the amount of two millions of dollars, to the Troy and Greenfield Railroad Company, "for the purpose of enabling said company to construct a tunnel and railroad under and through the Hoosac Mountain, in some place between the 'Great Bend,' in Deerfield river, and the town of Florida, at the base of the Hoosac Mountain on the East, and the base of the Western side of the mountain, near the East end of the village of North Adams, on the West." But this loan was modified and restricted by such conditions, artfully introduced by the foes of the enterprise, that the work still languished, and its friends almost despaired even of ultimate success. The enabling act of 1857, would have greatly relieved them, but it was vetoed by Gov. Gardner. At the beginning of 1860, only $230,000 of the two millions had been advanced.

In the Legislature of that year, the original act was modified so that the balance of the loan might be divided between the road from Greenfield and the Tunnel, for the construction of both parts of the work simultaneously. Provision was at the same time made for the appointment, annually, by the Governor, of a state engineer, to examine the work, make monthly estimates, and impose such requirements upon the company and contractors as he and the Governor and Council might deem expedient. In the summer of 1860, Colonel Ezra Lincoln of Boston, was appointed State engineer, and resigning in the following autumn, on account of illness, was succeeded by C. L. Stevenson, Esq.