The Cascade Tunnel refers to two tunnels at Stevens Pass through the Cascade Mountains, approximately 65 miles (105 km) to the east of Everett, Washington. The first Cascade Tunnel was a 2.63-mile (4.2 km) long single track railroad, built by the Great Northern Railway in 1900 to avoid problems caused by heavy winter snowfalls on the original line that had eight Zig Zags (switchbacks). The second tunnel, a 7.79-mile (12.5 km) single-track replacement of the earlier tunnel, was put in service on January 12, 1929 and is still in operation, connecting Berne in Chelan County on its east with Scenic Hot Springs in King County on its west. It is the longest railroad tunnel in the United States.
Read more about Cascade Tunnel: Operations
Famous quotes containing the words cascade and/or tunnel:
““End of tomorrow.
Don’t try to start the car or look deeper
Into the eternal wimpling of the sky: luster
On luster, transparency floated onto the topmost layer
Until the whole thing overflows like a silver
Wedding cake or Christmas tree, in a cascade of tears.””
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“It is the light
At the end of the tunnel as it might be seen
By him looking out somberly at the shower,
The picture of hope a dying man might turn away from,
Realizing that hope is something else, something concrete
You can’t have.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)