Hagerman Tunnel was a 2,161 ft (659 m) railroad tunnel

Tunnel

A tunnel is an underground passageway, completely enclosed except for openings for egress, commonly at each end.A tunnel may be for foot or vehicular road traffic, for rail traffic, or for a canal. Some tunnels are aqueducts to supply water for consumption or for hydroelectric stations or are sewers...

 crossing the Continental Divide

Continental Divide

The Continental Divide of the Americas, or merely the Continental Gulf of Division or Great Divide, is the name given to the principal, and largely mountainous, hydrological divide of the Americas that separates the watersheds that drain into the Pacific Ocean from those river systems that drain...

 in Colorado

Colorado

Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

 at an altitude of 11,528 ft (3,514 m).

Constructed in 1887 by the Colorado Midland Railroad and named for Midland officer James John Hagerman, it was replaced by the Busk-Ivanhoe Tunnel

Busk-Ivanhoe Tunnel

Busk-Ivanhoe Tunnel was a 9,394 ft long railroad tunnel at an elevation of 10,953 ft in Colorado. It was built by the Busk Tunnel Railway Company for the Colorado Midland Railroad in 1891 as a replacement for the Hagerman Tunnel at a lower, more direct route.The tunnel was briefly...

in 1893. There was a 1,084 ft (330 m) wooden trestle built on the eastern approach to the tunnel. At the time of its construction it was one of the highest tunnels ever built.

Following Colorado Midland's 1897 bankruptcy, the tunnel saw use again, but traffic returned to the Busk-Ivanhoe tunnel a few years later.

External links

• Photos from a 2006 trip to the east portal of the Hagerman tunnel