Tunnel 3 in the Oregon Cascades is the longest tunnel on the Natron cutoff at 3655′. That is only about .7 of a mile but its enough though to make quite the smoke show for southbound trains working upgrade. The first few units on the train seem to do just fine in the bore but the last couple tend to really get sick from eating the smoke and the hot air from the leaders. Over the years I’ve only watched a couple of trains exit the tunnel and they have all done it the same way. Very impressive.
After the lead units leave the tunnel the cars proceed to drag the smoke out with them. One car a time the air around the south portal becomes more and more foul. At one point as the Q-HKRV exited the tunnel so much warm smoke gathered that it erupted into a large cloud which floated off over Odell Lake. Thanks to the cars cleansing the tunnel when the HKRV’s distributed power units on the rear of the train finally exited the air was clear. Of course they were in dynamic braking for the slight downhill out of the tunnel and into Cascade Summit so they didn’t generate additional smoke.
Cough, cough, cough. Its probably not a good idea to make this a regular train watching spot though. Cough, cough, cough.
