Thanks for the video, it brings back some old memories. I was the Project Manager for the contractor that installed the new ventilation system at the East Portal in the early 80's. I have provided a brief description of the building and equipment based on the frame @ 1:52 1. Building in the center foreground is the original fan house. It housed two fans (rectangular buildings in the center of the frame) which pushed air from east to west - against normal barometric flow. The fans had only one speed and one direction. They are no longer in service. 2. From 1982 to 1984 the ventilation system was up graded - without taking the tracks or the ventilation system out of service for more than a few hours at a time. The “new” system starts at the tall square building - the Gate House - and includes the square shaped concrete and three fans and associated duct work. 3. The Gate House contains a large vertical lift steel framed gate that seals the tunnel so that it can be pressurized. The door is counter-weighted and fail safes up in an emergency. The center of the door has a frangible panel that allows a train to break though it in the event that the gate does not rise. 4. The fans and square ducts that run on either side of the Gate House are exhaust fans that pull air from the west and are used to clear the air after a train has past. These fans are 9’ diameter radial axial fans driven by 1,500HP electric motors and variable speed drives. 6.2 miles of tunnel could be cleared of exhaust in about 10 minutes and ready for another train. 5. The fan with the round duct (upper right) is the Cooling Fan that pushes air against an east bound train. Fully loaded coal trains move slowly and the exhaust is pushed along with the locomotives (piston effect). The cooling fan creates enough pressure to move the exhaust past the train and aids the locomotives and the crew. The Cooling fan was 1,250HP 6. The area under the low roof next to the canal houses all of the controls and two emergency generators. A smaller generator powers pumps, controls, and other ancillary equipment needed to start and maintain the larger generator that is capable of running all of the fans and the gate house. Weather is tough at the East Portal it needs to be self-sufficient. The larger generator is powered by a 16 cylinder EMD locomotive engine.
Great Info! I was able to guess what most of the structures were but I wondered what the third fan was for since it looked different from the other two. I take it that it runs while the train is in the tunnel while the other two run after the train exits? So, they don't ever run at the same time because they move air in the opposite directions. Thanks!
Hello there Rex Snyder my name is Robert Ornelas and the project you are talking about here happened to be my first construction job at the age of 18yrs old. Worked for DCO Construction out of Denver i believe. Was a great first job and was even better because I lived there in East Portal. My father Nick Ornelas is the one who had control of all the clearance times that would allow us to go inside and work between trains. My mother Dora is the one who would sell the Tacos and Burritos smothered in her Great green chili from our home. Great times and memories. Thanks for sharing your comment.
Interesting. I go through it on Amtrak sometimes.I want to know what would happen if a train was inside when when it is being cleaned? I'm sure its an unlikely thing to happen but just theoretically speaking?
@@rloornelas5043 Glad to share. You are one of the few people that understand how brutal the weather is at the East Portal. When we first moved a construction office trailer to the site the bottom frame was staked down, but we did not cable over the top. When the crew arrived back on Monday the entire upper part of the trailer, including all of the contents, was blown away! Living there must have been brutal!
My first visit to East Portal was in 2001. I was impressed by the entire facility there -- what little of it I was able to see at least. I was surprised at how loud the ventilation fans were. They could be heard several miles away! And they seemed, at that time at least, to run for quite a bit longer than 10-minutes. Also impressive, was the volume of smoke brought out. The whole valley east of the portal was filled with smoke! I loved it! I wanted to go inside the facility and see all of the equipment in action. I still do.
Excellent. We could have used those new fans in the later 70's. The old ski train was pretty rickety and us Eskimo Ski Club members inhaled plenty of diesel!
I remember hearing that announcement on the California Zephyr when we were about to go into the tunnel. Apparently the smoke from the diesel engines could cause it to get into the passenger cars and choke some of us if we opened a door to get from car to car, so we either had to stay in the car we were in or change cars before getting into the tunnel.
I learned a lot from your video. Most still photos only show the portal, and they make it appear that the portal is "up against the mountain side." Wow, that is not the case. Your drone allowed us to see the blower structures ... and some of the water tunnel? Thanks for posting!
Many thanks...excellent video. The drone has certainly made its mark on railway photography hasn’t it? Best wishes from a Rob in Bournemouth on the south coast of England. I have subscribed.
If you modeled the whole thing it would take up half of your layout! I found it interesting that the portal is around 100 yards from where the train actually enters the mountain.
What would have been nice, is to go into detail about the ventilation system and all it's parts and how they work. Showing us the complex is good, but more information is needed.
I don't have much knowledge of all the parts of the ventilation system but, if you scroll down to Rex Snyder's comment below, you'll find a wealth of info!
What’s the vacuum maintenance train at 5:02? I can’t find too much about it - why it is used and what it does. I saw it today when I was up there skiing.
That's a ballast cleaner and tamper that is up there quite a bit for grooming the tracks and ballast. www.nordco.com/Media/Maintenance-of-Way-Equipment/Tamping/Brochures/Jackson-6700Copy-2/10031-200Jackson6700RebuildProductProfileCopy-1.pdf
The system clears 6.2 miles of tunnel smoke in 10 minutes. The air inside the tunnel is moving at about 38 MPH. A nice little breeze. Westward trains climb at 0.3% for a bit less than three miles inside the bore and then descend at 0.8 or 0.9% to the west portal. The reason for the grades up to an apex in the tunnel supposedly was for water drainage due to the tunnel being bored from both ends at the same time. The reversal from exhausting air out the west portal to then exhausting it out the east portal was supposedly due partly to complaints of all the exhaust smoke from people in Winter Park.
@@donfeight2967 I did see images of something odd in the tunnel and plus the Moffat tunnel is pretty long.(6.2 miles or almost 10 kilometers if you're not from America Myanmar and Liberia) so I think those odd images were a tunnel door except the door is probably quieter than the Cascade tunnel.
I have much to learn, having seen this tunnel portal many times in Winter Park, CO which is west of Denver. It would seem to me that the entrance at Denver would be the EAST portal and the portal we see here in Winter Park, would be the WEST portal. ? ? ?
You're correct Dale. The ski train will stop right after it exits the West portal at Winter Park to disembark the passengers. Not much of a "platform". The train will go further, get turned around (using a wye track) and will then re-enter the West portal to go home. I've taken the "ski" train during the summer (when offered a while back) to mountain bike. Sounds like you ski Winter Park a bit .. try coming in the summer if you have time.
If you go to the 0:53 mark you can see where the tunnel actually enters to mountain behind all the ventilation structures probably 100 yards from the portal opening.
Sorry, I don't have a "narrator" quality voice! After posting this video a few years ago I got several reactions like yours so I added a very detailed comment in the description that answers most of the questions that most people had.
I disagree; I'm not a modeler, and even if i was, there wasn't any explanation of what the buildings/structures were, how they were related to ventilation. This is the first time I have been able to see that the "portal" isn't against the mountain - and it is still not evident how the tracks go from the building that everyone thinks of as the portal to where the tracks "enter" the mountain. There was no explanation of why that is. The Alaska RR tunnel from Portage to Whittier is against the mountain, and the "Easter" (Whittier side) is at a dangerous avalanche zone. Is that true of the Cascade's Eastern Portal? Read the book "Snowstruck" by Jill Fredston for a description of the perils of building that when it was changed from a train-only to a train/car tunnel. No explanation of the "modifications", unless there is a previous video to compare it to.
I looked for info on the structures and really couldn't find much. But it looks to me like some of the older buildings attached to the back of the portal are from an earlier or maybe even the original ventilation system. I have read that the system was updated in 1980. The newer blowers look like the mountain may have been cut away even further from the portal to make space for them. I will say that I have been up there when the fans are blowing and it is very loud! The West portal is right up against the mountain with no vent system at all so all the exhausting is done from the East end of the tunnel. I think I read somewhere that the fans have to run for 15-20 minutes to clear all the fumes out of the tunnel. Just my thoughts on it.
![Blox Fruits Dragon Rework Update [Full Stream]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EqDAp8udhm0/mqdefault.jpg)
Thanks for the video, it brings back some old memories. I was the Project Manager for the contractor that installed the new ventilation system at the East Portal in the early 80's. I have provided a brief description of the building and equipment based on the frame @ 1:52
1. Building in the center foreground is the original fan house. It housed two fans (rectangular buildings in the center of the frame) which pushed air from east to west - against normal barometric flow. The fans had only one speed and one direction.
They are no longer in service.
2. From 1982 to 1984 the ventilation system was up graded - without taking the tracks or the ventilation system out of service for more than a few hours at a time. The “new” system starts at the tall square building - the Gate House - and includes the square shaped concrete and three fans and associated duct work.
3. The Gate House contains a large vertical lift steel framed gate that seals the tunnel so that it can be pressurized. The door is counter-weighted and fail safes up in an emergency. The center of the door has a frangible panel that allows a train to break though it in the event that the gate does not rise.
4. The fans and square ducts that run on either side of the Gate House are exhaust fans that pull air from the west and are used to clear the air after a train has past. These fans are 9’ diameter radial axial fans driven by 1,500HP electric motors and variable speed drives.
6.2 miles of tunnel could be cleared of exhaust in about 10 minutes and ready for another train.
5. The fan with the round duct (upper right) is the Cooling Fan that pushes air against an east bound train. Fully loaded coal trains move slowly and the exhaust is pushed along with the locomotives (piston effect). The cooling fan creates enough pressure to move the exhaust past the train and aids the locomotives and the crew. The Cooling fan was 1,250HP
6. The area under the low roof next to the canal houses all of the controls and two emergency generators. A smaller generator powers pumps, controls, and other ancillary equipment needed to start and maintain the larger generator that is capable of running all of the fans and the gate house. Weather is tough at the East Portal it needs to be self-sufficient. The larger generator is powered by a 16 cylinder EMD locomotive engine.
Great Info! I was able to guess what most of the structures were but I wondered what the third fan was for since it looked different from the other two. I take it that it runs while the train is in the tunnel while the other two run after the train exits? So, they don't ever run at the same time because they move air in the opposite directions. Thanks!
Hello there Rex Snyder my name is Robert Ornelas and the project you are talking about here happened to be my first construction job at the age of 18yrs old. Worked for DCO Construction out of Denver i believe. Was a great first job and was even better because I lived there in East Portal. My father Nick Ornelas is the one who had control of all the clearance times that would allow us to go inside and work between trains. My mother Dora is the one who would sell the Tacos and Burritos smothered in her Great green chili from our home.
Great times and memories. Thanks for sharing your comment.
Interesting. I go through it on Amtrak sometimes.I want to know what would happen if a train was inside when when it is being cleaned? I'm sure its an unlikely thing to happen but just theoretically speaking?
Thank you for that detailed explanation of the exhaust system.
@@rloornelas5043 Glad to share. You are one of the few people that understand how brutal the weather is at the East Portal. When we first moved a construction office trailer to the site the bottom frame was staked down, but we did not cable over the top. When the crew arrived back on Monday the entire upper part of the trailer, including all of the contents, was blown away! Living there must have been brutal!
My first visit to East Portal was in 2001. I was impressed by the entire facility there -- what little of it I was able to see at least. I was surprised at how loud the ventilation fans were. They could be heard several miles away! And they seemed, at that time at least, to run for quite a bit longer than 10-minutes. Also impressive, was the volume of smoke brought out. The whole valley east of the portal was filled with smoke! I loved it! I wanted to go inside the facility and see all of the equipment in action. I still do.
Great video. I never realized how far out from the actually mountain the tunnel entry point is, very interesting to see.
don i found a video of the inside of the tunnel i am astonished what a great place it is
Waw. How can you not love the nature?! What a beautiful place.
I try to make it up there every fall!
Fantastic aerial view of the tunnel entrance! Thanks for sharing.
I was at the 75th anniversary celebration of the tunnel when the time capsule was opened. Brings back memories.
Fantastic Video!!!
I have seen a lot of Moffat Tunnel Videos but never from that perspective!
Thanks! What is interesting to me is how far the portal is from the actual tunnel, must be 100 yards!
Nice video! I never knew that trains went through all those buildings before the tunnel.
Very nice video. Thanks for posting and have a nice day too.
One of the best modeling reference vids I've ever seen! Thank you very much for sharing Don & hope you have plenty more vids from Colorado 😉
Excellent. We could have used those new fans in the later 70's. The old ski train was pretty rickety and us Eskimo Ski Club members inhaled plenty of diesel!
Superb video, lot of detail!
The trailing Amtrak unit in this video, #133 was the lead unit of the Southwest Chief that struck that dump truck in Mendon, Missouri a few days ago.
This tunnel flush is included in one of 1 of two videos put out by Aaron Bentsen of 7ideaproductions. GREAT video and GREAT music here! THANKS!
4:44 "Please remain in the car you're currently in..."
I remember hearing that announcement on the California Zephyr when we were about to go into the tunnel. Apparently the smoke from the diesel engines could cause it to get into the passenger cars and choke some of us if we opened a door to get from car to car, so we either had to stay in the car we were in or change cars before getting into the tunnel.
I learned a lot from your video. Most still photos only show the portal, and they make it appear that the portal is "up against the mountain side." Wow, that is not the case. Your drone allowed us to see the blower structures ... and some of the water tunnel? Thanks for posting!
Me too!
Many thanks...excellent video. The drone has certainly made its mark on railway photography hasn’t it? Best wishes from a Rob in Bournemouth on the south coast of England. I have subscribed.
The drone perspective is like watching a model railroad at times.
Fantastic reference vid if you want to build a model of the east portal
If you modeled the whole thing it would take up half of your layout! I found it interesting that the portal is around 100 yards from where the train actually enters the mountain.
Tom spettel n
Well done! Thanks!!
What would have been nice, is to go into detail about the ventilation system and all it's parts and how they work. Showing us the complex is good, but more information is needed.
I don't have much knowledge of all the parts of the ventilation system but, if you scroll down to Rex Snyder's comment below, you'll find a wealth of info!
@@donfeight2967 Thank you! I will.
Also, I would have liked an overheard view while it was on with train entering or exiting.
Check the description, it’s super detailed.
Wow I thought this tunnel was up against the mountain range
What’s the vacuum maintenance train at 5:02? I can’t find too much about it - why it is used and what it does. I saw it today when I was up there skiing.
That's a ballast cleaner and tamper that is up there quite a bit for grooming the tracks and ballast. www.nordco.com/Media/Maintenance-of-Way-Equipment/Tamping/Brochures/Jackson-6700Copy-2/10031-200Jackson6700RebuildProductProfileCopy-1.pdf
Plasser Ballast Vacuum Scraper-Excavator - VM170
Great work!
It seems to me that dependence upon one route under the Continental Divide is impractical. Should an alternative be necessary, could it be done?
North to Cheyenne then east or west from there.
Rumor has it the trains never come out the other side....
Awesome
The system clears 6.2 miles of tunnel smoke in 10 minutes. The air inside the tunnel is moving at about 38 MPH. A nice little breeze. Westward trains climb at 0.3% for a bit less than three miles inside the bore and then descend at 0.8 or 0.9% to the west portal. The reason for the grades up to an apex in the tunnel supposedly was for water drainage due to the tunnel being bored from both ends at the same time. The reversal from exhausting air out the west portal to then exhausting it out the east portal was supposedly due partly to complaints of all the exhaust smoke from people in Winter Park.
Does this one open/closes like Cascade?
I think it does have a door
@@donfeight2967 I did see images of something odd in the tunnel and plus the Moffat tunnel is pretty long.(6.2 miles or almost 10 kilometers if you're not from America Myanmar and Liberia) so I think those odd images were a tunnel door except the door is probably quieter than the Cascade tunnel.
I have much to learn, having seen this tunnel portal many times in Winter Park, CO which is west of Denver. It would seem to me that the entrance at Denver would be the EAST portal and the portal we see here in Winter Park, would be the WEST portal. ? ? ?
You're correct Dale. The ski train will stop right after it exits the West portal at Winter Park to disembark the passengers. Not much of a "platform". The train will go further, get turned around (using a wye track) and will then re-enter the West portal to go home. I've taken the "ski" train during the summer (when offered a while back) to mountain bike. Sounds like you ski Winter Park a bit .. try coming in the summer if you have time.
Where is the water coming from out of tunnel?
It’s a separate canal tunnel that parallels the railroad.
on 3/20/2019 aprox 21.36pst this vid starts to load but never plays. just the spinning white line. tried two different systems, firefox, IE & Chrome.
I was able to run the video in all my different browsers with no problem. Not sure what the problem might be.
Does the tunnel go underneath the mountain where it's at?
If you go to the 0:53 mark you can see where the tunnel actually enters to mountain behind all the ventilation structures probably 100 yards from the portal opening.
What drone you using?
DJI Mavic
no view of where it enters the mountain?
You can see it a little at 0:55 but there really isn't much to see!
@@donfeight2967 Yes, I wanted to see that junction in more detail.
Google Earth shows as much as this video does. I wanted info on the ventilation system, there is none here.
No information on the system, just music. People not in the know would still have no idea what goes on here.
Sorry, I don't have a "narrator" quality voice! After posting this video a few years ago I got several reactions like yours so I added a very detailed comment in the description that answers most of the questions that most people had.
I disagree; I'm not a modeler, and even if i was, there wasn't any explanation of what the buildings/structures were, how they were related to ventilation. This is the first time I have been able to see that the "portal" isn't against the mountain - and it is still not evident how the tracks go from the building that everyone thinks of as the portal to where the tracks "enter" the mountain. There was no explanation of why that is. The Alaska RR tunnel from Portage to Whittier is against the mountain, and the "Easter" (Whittier side) is at a dangerous avalanche zone. Is that true of the Cascade's Eastern Portal? Read the book "Snowstruck" by Jill Fredston for a description of the perils of building that when it was changed from a train-only to a train/car tunnel. No explanation of the "modifications", unless there is a previous video to compare it to.
I looked for info on the structures and really couldn't find much. But it looks to me like some of the older buildings attached to the back of the portal are from an earlier or maybe even the original ventilation system. I have read that the system was updated in 1980. The newer blowers look like the mountain may have been cut away even further from the portal to make space for them. I will say that I have been up there when the fans are blowing and it is very loud! The West portal is right up against the mountain with no vent system at all so all the exhausting is done from the East end of the tunnel. I think I read somewhere that the fans have to run for 15-20 minutes to clear all the fumes out of the tunnel. Just my thoughts on it.
That's a expensive way avoiding some copper wires
Wow. Now that is worthless
.fly around!!!! We want to see working and info !!
creepy music.
強制換気付き トンネル
Could have done without the gay-ass music. But otherwise…nice video