The westbound Zephyr heads west through a cut that is known as "Old Tunnel 17". When the Moffat Route was originally be built in the early 1900s, the tunnel presented a lot of geologic problems, includes frequent cave-ins. The tracks were rerouted around a shoofly outside of the tunnel. That shoofly is now beneath all the pine trees on the outside of the cut in this shot. Old Tunnel 17 was finally daylighted, and the tracks were moved to their current alignment, now moving through a cut instead of a tunnel.
While Tunnels 9 and 28 were daylight quite awhile after the route had been in operation, they retained their numbers. Since "Old Tunnel 17" had issues from the beginning of construction, at was ultimately bypassed, the next tunnel to the west was numbered Tunnel 17 from the start.
Posted By Terry Ten Eyck On Tuesday, July 8, 2025 At 4:16:53 PM (PT)
Kevin Morgan’s great photographs of the ‘difficult to access’ portion of the Tunnel District depict an area with some interesting history. It is noteworthy that the locomotive has already climbed to within 30’ of the Rio Grande’s Palmer Divide summit’s 7,237’ elevation. The embankment behind the train is just above the WP of T-16. For just 153 days, a 93' high, 12 panel timber pile trestle at station 1269+50 => 1271+42 (≈ 192'), used a mud sill foundation, on 11°R curve existed here from April to September, 1904. It was suitable only for Moffat’s light weight 0-6-0 locomotives # 20 & 21. It was filled from material from “old” abandoned T-17.
Between T-8 and T-31* (old numbers) several tunnels had names. Those named tunnels are listed below. * After Gen. Mgr. A. C. Ridgway left the Moffat Road, tunnel numbering changed to 'new’ numbers between about May 1905 and 1907.
T-8 Hook Mountain Tunnel 721’ long
T-9 unnamed 388’ long abandoned Nov. 7, 1903
T-10 Spring Gulch Tunnel, 1,554’ long
T-11 Timber Gulch Tunnel 216’ long T-11 considered for daylighting per Jan. 17, 1903 letter.
T-12 Tongue Ridge Tunnel 386’ long
T-13 E. Twin Tunnel 300’ long
T-14 W. Twin Tunnel 407’ long
T-15 E. Quartz Creek Tunnel 421’ long
T-16 Quartz Creek Tunnel 698’ long
T-17 W. Quartz Creek Tunnel ≈ 420’ long (work stopped on 11-07-1903)
T-18 (new # 17) Polock Tunnel 1,730’ long (named after Henry Constantine Kabitsky, local landowner). (by 1907, renumbered to T-17)
T-24 (new #23) Headquarters Tunnel 1,549’ long (contractor George S. Good Co.’s HQ)
T- 31 (new # 30) Sphinx Head Tunnel 255’ long
