Mysteries of Alpine-part 6: Were the tracks in the Alpine Tunnel ever abandoned?

The line from Hancock to Quartz through the Alpine Tunnel was abandoned in 1910...or was it?  The answer is “not exactly.”  In practice, of course, the trains stopped running, but when it came to official recognition of trackage, it gets a little murkier.

The rails themselves moldered away for thirteen years before the C&S finally pulled them, so those inactive tracks were still on the books for over a decade after the last steel wheels pulled by a locomotive rolled over them.  In fact, the words, “Abandon line between Hancock and Quartz” shows up in a C&S report dated September 17, 1923!  In this same report the cost of all the items retired is listed.  Included in this list is the mileage, specified as “M.P. 160.55 to 162.71 and M.P. 163.42 to 173.81.”  Why the gap between 162.71 and 163.42?  That 0.71 segment of a mile is presumably the track inside the tunnel and out of the west portal that for various reasons was unredeemable by the scrapper (An exploration of those reasons can be found here and here).

Lew Schneider-1958

So, this short segment technically remained on the C&S’ official mileage amount.  The following month, October 1923, a document entitled “C&S Report of Changes in Official Mileage for Oct. 1923” lists, “Hancock to Quartz...Length 12.86 miles.  12.44 miles taken up.  Length [remaining] .42 miles.”  Despite the .42 versus .71 discrepancy, the point is that this stretch of track was still considered a part of the railroad.  In fact, Daniel W. Edwards remarks, “One might argue then that the tracks through the Tunnel were never officially abandoned and remained part of the C&S’ official mileage!”

John Sanderson

Source: Daniel W. Edwards.  A Documentary History of the South Park Line: Vol. 5: The Gunnison District, Part II.