History...

[Randal_Schulhauser]

Here's some background info that arrived from Arizona Highways after I'd already posted the hike description for the Johnson Canyon Railway Tunnel Trail. After reading this, it makes me want to go back and check out some of the historical sites more closely...


Johnson Canyon Tunnel Sparks Danger Along the Tracks
by Bob Thomas

It's strange, I guess, that a place which cost many lives in shootings, explosions, fires, cave-ins, rock falls and wrecks, a place that was a byword for deadly train accidents, a place deemed so valuable in wartime that armed soldiers stood guard 24 hours a day, should be all-but-forgotten today.
Thousands of persons have passed through the Johnson Canyon Tunnel, many of them still living today, but few know its epic history and its importance to transcontinental train travel.
The 123-year-old tunnel, where once the thunder of freight and passenger trains shook the ground and the lonely sound of steam whistles echoed, now lies quiet and peaceful, abandoned between the northern Arizona towns of Williams and Ash Fork.
Located just a few miles north of Interstate 40, the tunnel can be easily reached by a short walk. The railroad tracks have been pulled up, but the roadbed is wide and smooth and makes a great hiking or mountain bike trail through the Kaibab National Forest.
In 1881, the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, rushing to complete its rail line to California, was looking for a route that would carry the tracks off the pine-covered Colorado Plateau near Williams and down the western slope to the piñon and juniper country around Ash Fork. Johnson Canyon was one of the few that penetrated the plateau and offered railroad engineers a downward passage to the West.
However, the canyon was steep with a roadbed grade of 3 percent--a drop of 112 feet per mile-- above the accepted grade levels for main line railroads. There were several other obstacles in the canyon, and chief among them was a shoulder of the mountain that bulged outwards forming a cliff just where the canyon made a sharp turn. The track crew couldn't go around it, so they had to tunnel through it.
The tunnel, the only one on the line west of Albuquerque, would be a short 328 feet. At first it didn't appear to be a difficult job. But soon after the men began digging, they ran into an underlying formation of basalt, an extremely hard stone called “malpais,” meaning bad land or bad rock.
There were other problems. On the downhill side of the tunnel site were two 100-foot deep gorges, one after the other, that would require steel trestles.
Soon 3,000 men, more than the total population of Williams, were working on the small section of track that became known as one of the most dangerous in the country. ) The workers lived in a collection of tents and knock-together wood frame buildings on the ridge directly above the tunnel. The “town" had no name, being variously called Tunnel, Simms for the name of the railroad contractor supervising the work, or Simms’s Tunnel.
It was a rough place. There were at least three saloons, two stores and probably several brothels. There was no law, no safety provisions and the closest medical help, such as it was, was in Prescott 75 miles south by stagecoach.
The work paid $2.40 a day for laborers, $2.60 a day for removing rock and $2.80 a day for tunnel drillers. The men worked 10-hour days, six days a week. Every morning the workers had to make a 200-foot climb down a rocky cliff to the tunnel and climb back up again after work.
Injuries, many from falling rocks, were common. Shootings, while less frequent, often made the pages of Prescott's Arizona Weekly Miner. One such account was about a February 1882 double slaying in the construction camp. Two workers, James Casey and William Ryan, were drinking in one of the saloons when Casey, without warning, drew a revolver and shot Ryan in the head and neck with fatal results. Casey then fled to another saloon, barricaded himself inside with a loaded shotgun and dared the armed and enraged camp citizens to come get him.
"Luckily a ball from one of the guns," read the newspaper account, "ended his villainous career and he was sent to meet his Maker with the blood of Ryan fresh on his hands. Both men were buried Thursday in a creditable manner; Ryan many (persons) to mourn his sudden taking away and Casey without a friend."
The first deaths in the tunnel happened on a warm August day in 1881 as workers were preparing to blast rocks inside the tunnel. Two and half tons of blasting powder were being tamped into the drill holes when something went horribly wrong. The premature explosion blew six men to bits, shooting them out of the tunnel as if it were a gun barrel. One body was found on top of a large tree down in the canyon. Outside the tunnel, a boy riding in a cart pulled by a mule was also killed. The mule was unscathed. The dead were buried near the tunnel. There would be others.
Tunnel construction soon fell behind schedule and the A&P, a nearly bankrupt operation trying to get by on the cheap, was forced to sell its stock to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad. The Santa Fe, which eventually took over the whole line, pumped needed money into the construction.
When hand drilling and blasting failed to make much progress after nearly a year of work, a steam-powered drill was brought in and the tunnel finally holed through in early 1882. But months of other work were needed before the tunnel was ready for train travel.
Much of it concerned rock falls in the tunnel. To prevent cave-ins, the roof of the tunnel was lined with foot-thick timber. But this didn't work very well and the roof, so the sides were sheathed in iron plates. Still later, the floor of the tunnel was lowered to accommodate larger freight cars and higher loads and a masonry half wall was built on each side of the tunnel. Finally, in an effort to stop rock falls once and for all, the whole tunnel roof and sides were coated with sprayed-on concrete.
In 1898, the wooden beams behind the iron plating in the tunnel somehow caught on fire, perhaps from a spark of a passing engine's smokestack. Firemen using a railroad tank car poured water on the fire until they thought they had extinguished it and then returned to Williams. The next day the fire flared up again and burned out of control, shooting 50-foot-high flames out of each end of the tunnel. Hindered by the iron plate sheathing, the fire fighters could do little to stop it. When it looked like the fire was burning itself out, 50 men worked their way into the tunnel. Suddenly, the charred roof timbers gave way and hot iron plates and rocks rained down, killing two men and seriously injuring nine.
The tunnel was closed for 11 days. It reopened for just one day when another fire broke out, or the old fire reignited, and this time it seemed to be worse, causing another death and many more injuries. Santa Fe was shut down in northern Arizona for almost a month and had to ship freight and passengers via Southern Pacific tracks.
But it was derailments and train wrecks in the tunnel that gave Johnson Canyon its national reputation as a dangerous place. Heavily loaded freight trains coming down the steep grade from Williams had to brake hard approaching the tunnel because the tracks inside curved to the right. The enormous pressures of train after train setting their air brakes caused the curving rails to spread apart or created a washboard effect.
Jumping the tracks, a locomotive would ricochet off the walls of the tunnel, tearing up the rails like spaghetti. Then, with the train emerging from the tunnel, the terrified crew were confronted with a 100-foot-high trestle. Some railroaders jumped from the engine into the canyon, hoping the rest of the train would not follow. Some rode the train over the edge. You still can see parts of old train wrecks among the pines that line the creek bed 200 feet below.
Runaway trains, most due to brake failures, had the most spectacular wrecks at the tunnel. One train carrying seven water tank cars (Santa Fe often supplied drinking water for northern Arizona towns) derailed, flipping the locomotive upside down. A brakeman trapped in the wreckage drowned in the deluge of water from the ruptured tank cars.
Crews were kept busy with track repairs and upgrades as train traffic increased. Both trestles on the west side of the tunnel were replaced with earthen fill, giving the trainmen a wider, safer roadbed. But the single-track tunnel remained a headache. Eastbound and westbound trains had to take turns in Johnson Canyon, the eastbound freights needing several "helper" engines for the steep climb from Ash Fork to Williams.
Finally, in 1911, the railroad decided to build a new 15 mile-long track that would bypass Johnson Canyon and its tunnel. The route had a less severe grade than the canyon route, and it would be used by eastbound trains. Johnson Canyon would continue to carry westbound trains descending from Williams.
During World War II, westbound troop trains and freights loaded with war materiel were a never-ending sight as they slowly trundled down Johnson Canyon. The tunnel bottleneck was tested to the limits. If it should be blocked for any reason, the whole war effort in the Pacific Theater could be affected. To prevent any sabotage, armed soldiers were stationed at the tunnel throughout the war. Their wooden guard shack can still be seen overlooking the west tunnel entrance.
In 1960, with the Santa Fe phasing out its steam engines and switching to more powerful diesel locomotives, the company decided it was time to give up on the unlucky tunnel.
A new 44-mile double-track line with sweeping curves and gentle grades was built, bypassing both Williams and Ash Fork. Today the Santa Fe continues to operate its 1911 alignment from Williams to Ash Fork, where the line connects with the company's "Peavine" railway to Prescott and Phoenix.
But Johnson Canyon’s history and many a railroader was happy to see it go. Still, if you make the 2-mile hike up the old roadbed and see the tunnel, pause for a moment. Is that a faint sound of a train whistle, or just the wind sighing?

Bob Thomas of Phoenix says there are few places in Arizona that have had so many spectacular and deadly events concentrated in the space of a few hundred yards as there are in Johnson Canyon.

From JoBeth Jamison
Web Editor
Arizona Highways Magazine
2039 W. Lewis Ave.
Phoenix, Arizona 85009
602-712-2058
jjamison@azdot.gov

[azbackpackr]

That is so cool! Thanks for posting it! Now I'll have to go there!

[RedRoxx44]

Those interested might want to google "Carrizo Gorge" in the Anza Borrego State Park in California. Used to hike the tracks, now reopened for service I understand so off limits. Used to be able to go on the Goat Canyon Trestle, supposedly the highest curved wooden railroad trestle in the world. I can tell you the view from middle of the bridge was stimulating and frightening.

Hiked lots of the tunnels, some so dark and long could barely see light at the end. Wonderful workmanship of early 1900's , arched wooden trusses supporting tons of rock. The Goat Canyon trestle was built because of a shift and tunnel collapse in one mountain side, you could climb in the old tunnel and see part of the collapse, and one inch rebar twisted like spaghetti.

Built along the side of a deep canyon, so crossing some of the trestles you looked down between the grates to lots of air. It was a great hike about 12 miles as an in and out. I think you can still do a cross country over a small ridgeline and view the Goat Canyon trestle just not hike on it now. Glad I did that one a bunch of times, still an all time favorite hike.

[Randal_Schulhauser]

In a similar vein, I'm sure many of us have traveled to Crown King. Are we aware that the present day road from Cleator to Crown King used to be an "Impossible Railroad"?


Murphy's Impossible Railroad (Prescott and Eastern Railroad)

When the Santa Fe, Prescott & Phoenix Railroad was built and connected central Arizona with the rest of the country in 1895, the town of Prescott flourished. Gold strikes in the nearby Bradshaw Mountains were estimated to be about $390K that year. To bring the gold ore to the smelters, entrepreneur and mine owner Frank Murphy decided to connect the towns in the hills with railroad. In the year 1898 he finished building 26 miles of normal gauge railroad line connecting the mining and trade center town of Mayer, with the town of Humboldt that had an ore smelter. But Murphy had much bigger plans. He wished to build the track 25 miles further from Mayer into the Bradshaw Mountains, to the Crown King mines. Because the Crown King was about 2000 feet above Mayer with a ridiculously steep climbing grade, citizens of Mayer called the idea "Murphy's Impossible Railroad". Murphy advertised in the Eastern newspapers and offered workers $5 per day - double the normal construction laborer salary. In autumn 1901, standard gauge Bradshaw Mountain Railroad was under construction and divided in two forks. The short one was 8 miles from Poland Junction to Murphy's mine interest by Poland. That line was built in 7 months. The first delay was in January 1902 when the railroad construction stopped totally, because they found a mother-load of gold and copper while blasting a right-of-way in the area. Half of the workers forgot everything about railroad work, and became miners. More advertising in Eastern newspapers soon brought two rail carriages of workers. Construction of the second fork from Mayer soon connected Cedar Canyon and Turkey Creek (later named Cleator). The next 3 years were spent tackling the southern slopes of the Bradshaw Mountains towards Crown King. Costs were 3 times than expected and there were unexpected terrain problems. When the rail finely reached Crown King in 1904 "Murphy's Impossible Railroad" became a reality making newspaper headlines throughout the nation. During its existence, the railroad transported about $2.5M in gold and silver from Pine Grove, Tiger, Big Bug, Turkey Creek (Cleator) and Crown King mining districts. When the mines were finally played out and closed down, the rail was removed in 1927. The roadbed became Crown King Road (aka FR 259) still used be vehicles today traveling the 10 miles from Cleator to Crown King.

Also check out:

http://www.desertusa.com/mag03/jun/crown.html

[PrestonSands]

You can still see roadcuts on the tails of the switchbacks where the tracks once laid, on the road between Cleator and Crown King. There were 10 switchbacks in this section of the Bradshaw Mountain Railroad, along with a 400 foot long wooden trestle, and a tunnel. Frank Murphy was a determined man! Ghost Railroads Of Central Arizona by John W. Sayre tells the whole story of the Prescott and Eastern and Bradshaw Mountain Railroads.