Demolition crews implode historic Moody Tunnel
Published Friday, April 18, 2008
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HEALY — The historic Moody Railroad Tunnel is gone, blasted to smithereens Thursday by a carefully controlled explosion that left a pile of rubble on the mountainside above the Nenana River.
Almost immediately, heavy equipment operators began excavating the estimated 4,000-cubic yards of rock and debris. Trains were expected to run on schedule by today.
The result of the year-long project, according to railroad engineers, will be a safer section of track. It also marks the end of an era.
Moody Tunnel was the last of the 1921 Alaska Railroad tunnels and the last of three tunnels along this same section of track. Before its removal for safety reasons, it was eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.
One of the tunnels, at 354.7 Mile, was abandoned in the 1940s after it caved in because of continual erosion. The Garner Tunnel, at 356.2 Mile, was “daylighted” — or opened up — in 2005 after years of maintenance problems.
Alaska Railroad workers turned their attention to the Moody Tunnel in 2007. The tunnel is easily visible from the highway bridge over the Nenana River.
On Thursday morning, a crowd of railroad workers and passers-by gathered in the wind and snow, on the bridge just a few miles south of Healy. The cluster of bright orange hard hats and safety vests was easy to spot. For months, heavy equipment drivers have been scraping away rocks and dirt from the top of the tunnel, which initially was about 70 feet deep. It wasn’t an easy job, due to the steep terrain, biting wind and arctic temperatures. The mountain is made primarily of Birch Creek Schist.“It just turns into powder,” said Greg Lotakis, civil projects manager. “And when the wind comes up, it makes for real dusty conditions.”
By the time they were done, however, only about 15 feet of overburden remained above the tunnel.
“We probably removed a solid 50 feet of mountain away before we dropped the tunnel,” said Lotakis.
That 50 feet of rock and dirt were moved, by train, upstream to a slope on the west side of the Nenana River, visible from the highway bridge. That land is owned by the Alaska Railroad.
Originally, the Moody Tunnel stretched 260 feet long. It has been “dropped” or “daylighted” in stages.
“Originally, we planned to drop it in four pieces,” said Lotakis. “But after the first two 65-foot chunks, we decided it was safer to go ahead and removed the final half.”
To do that, the Alaska Railroad hired Advanced Blasting Services.
After coming up with a plan for the final 120 feet of tunnel, the explosives engineers began carefully loading charges at 7 a.m. Wednesday.
They had already drilled holes 10- to 15-feet deep in strategic spots throughout the tunnel. They also placed explosive charges on the timbers that hold up the tunnel, to make sure the blast turned them into manageable debris.
When explosives engineer Mikel Saunders shouted “fire in the hole!” and pressed the red button, the blast shook the bridge and the mountainside.
A giant cloud of dirt and dust burst into the air but the controlled implosion ended with tons of rock falling onto the track and not into the river or anywhere else.
“Different shots require different sequences,” said Dylan Saunders, an explosive engineer with Advanced Blasting Services. “We wanted this to move toward the south and toward the center.”
When the dust settled, there were more than a few whistles of admiration from the crowd.
“We’ve got rock to move now,” one railroad worker said with a laugh.
There’s still plenty of work ahead.
Heavy equipment operators will continue gnawing away at the mountainside until they have a comfortable ditch and shoulder established around that section of railroad track.
Maintenance crews need space for snow removal and other safety duties, Lotakis said.
The explosion was dutifully recorded by The History Channel for its new series “Tougher In Alaska,” which begins airing 13 segments on May 8.
After the blast, railroad workers reminisced about the Moody Tunnel and how they had tried to preserve it.
“This one, we just couldn’t get around,” one railroad engineer said. “The only engineering solution was to daylight it.”
“That’s a fancy term,” added a second worker, “for ‘Tunnel No More.’”
Comments
Well..... that's kinda sad. :(
Well I cannot say I will miss it much but does bring back memories.
I spent two glorious summers of my youth guiding raft trips down the Nenana River and Moody was one of my favorite spots. In the day, the ARR actually used boxcars to shore up the river bank below the tunnel. I think they did this back in the 40's or 50's. The boxcars washed away a while back. Moody was the prelude to "Hole in the Wall", a part of the river that was usually tame but could provide some surprises in the narrow passage.
Thanks to the ARR crews for making this route safe for the travelers on the rails!
This is a great example of keeping the outsiders from telling us how to manage Alaskan resources. They would have wanted to protect those rocks that were hauled away from this site, even at the cost of the lives of people who passed under those rocks.
Just like with polar bears, we need to keep the outsiders from dictating to Alaska, so we can shoot nuisance bears that show up in villages in ever-increasing numbers, as far south as Fort Yukon now. Relocation does not work. They can swim 60 miles and are great navigators. They go where they find food. And they are at an all-time high in population. So thank goodness the outsiders are not having their way with this issue.
This sounds like a very well-managed project if the trains are still running! Good job.
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