Cascade High Line 1909–1915
This image commemorates the Cascade high line, through Snoqualmie Pass, which closed 100 years
ago this month. The Laconia railroad yard
of the Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound Railway was located at the summit of the Cascade high
line through Snoqualmie Pass in Washington State. The Cascade high line ran for 9.1 miles through
the Cascade Mountains between the railroad stations of Keechelus and Rockdale, before the
completion of the 2.3-mile Snoqualmie Tunnel. By Snoqualmie Pass the high line looped about 172
degrees around a horseshoe curve that ran around the confluence of Commonwealth Creek with the
South Fork Snoqualmie River. The degree of curvature of the horseshoe curve was 10 degrees per
100 feet, except the first and last 100 feet had a degree of curvature of half that amount. The
main line between Laconia and Seattle was
completed on February 3, 1909, using then between Maple Valley and Seattle leased trackage rights
on the Columbia & Puget Sound Railroad. The name Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound Railway
only lasted from 1909 through 1912 and then the Pacific Coast extension of the railroad also
became known as the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway. January 1915 marked the transition
from the Cascade high line to the Snoqualmie Tunnel line. The steep Cascade high line route
through Laconia was eliminated when the
more direct route through the 2.3-mile Snoqualmie Tunnel, between Hyak and Rockdale, opened for
regularly scheduled train service on January 24, 1915.
Cascade High Line Commemoration – January 2015
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