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knew it. David D. Colton of the SPRR then went to decided to drop three vertical shafts into San Fernando
Washington, D.C., with a bill asking for permission to Mountain. This created a total of eight faces for the
connect his company's Tehachapi line with the expand- tunnel men to deal with-an ongoing lesson in fear
ing L.A. line via the Mojave Desert and Cajon Pass. In wrought by crumbling shale and sandstone, flooding by
effect, the bill would enable Southern Pacific to put off subterranean springs, and the mere thought of being
the digging of San Fernando Tunnel, perhaps abandon- 400 feet underground. Only one man, Coroner A.B.
ing the Los Angeles trackage altogether, and at the Moffitt, kept a record of the fatalities, but he never
same time locking the LA&IRR out of the rich silver revealed the death toll to anyone, not even to Charles
trade pouring from the distant Panamint Range, which Crocker, then president of the SPRR.
for years had given L.A. much of its wealth. Much in On the night of July 14, 1876, two Chinese coolies,
contrast to their prior demeanor, a few prominent using candles as illumination, dug past the final wall of
Angelenos reminded the Californians in Congress that dirt, and San Fernando Tunnel was holed through.
the Southern Pacific had signed a contract in 1872 Dollars spent on the project totaled two million, and at
promising that L.A. shall remain on the main trunk. 6,966 feet, the tunnel ranked as the third longest in the
With the Colton bill thereby defeated, the SPRR on U.S.-fourth in the world. Tracks were soon laid inside
March 2, 1875, mounted its construction forces on two San Fernando Tunnel and extended to what would be-
fronts: eastward to Yuma over the dusty San Gorgonio come the towns of Saugus and Newhall. From Lyons
Pass, and north into San Fernando Mountain toward Station, just north of the bore, the telegraph dispatch of
the Santa Clara (now Santa Clarita) Valley and Soledad August 9, 1876, read, "The iron horse poked his head
Canyon. through the San Fernando Tunnel this evening at six
Frank Frates, supervising 330 Chinese and white o'clock and neighed long and loud his hearty greeting
laborers, commenced the tunnel blasting on March 27, to the citizens of Santa Clara Valley." In the sixteen
and soon increased his gang to 1,000 Chinese diggers, months it took to build this marvel, Hood's men had
350 white mechanics, and nearly 100 cooks and tool already threaded rails up from the Mojave Desert to a
dressers. Simultaneously, William Hood was pressing 3, 196-foot summit at Soledad Summit (later Vincent),
across the Tehachapis and would soon be building into thence moving west into Soledad Canyon. Railheads
Soledad's back door. Hood's scheme of looping the met on Sept. 5, 1876, at the mouth of the canyon, an
track up and over itself at Walong was one of many area eventually honored by the presence of the on-line
engineering feats which earned him a promotion to station of Lang. Four thousand Chinese stood assem-
chief engineer. With the deadline for the $602,000 bled in military rank and file along the last 1,050 feet of
subsidy growing near (trains were to be running into roadbed, with the two rivalrous gangs from Los Ange-
L.A. by Nov. 5, 1876, or the SP would forfeit), Frates les and San Francisco-the men of Frates and Hood-

Back in 1936, 2-10-2 No. 3689 storms upgrade through the semaphores at Paris siding, hauling
33 cars that were the consist of westbound freight No. 813., - RALPH E. MELCHING

10 • APRIL 1984