Jensen Tunnel, MP 427.9 - 1,180' Long - Backbone Mountain - Jensen, AR, MP 429.3 - Arthur Subdivisio

Discussion in 'Tunnels' started by Chuck, Mar 10, 2007.

  1. Chuck

    Chuck Member

    Can anyone give me any information on the Tunnel?

    I recently got to visit just north of Hackett, AR. It has a date of 1886 above both ends of the tunnel entrances. When my wife was a child her Sunday School class took a field trip to it. It was very fascinating to me.

    Any info would be enjoyed.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 14, 2024
  2. SteveM

    SteveM Member Frisco.org Supporter

    I happened to be in a conversation a few months ago when the current owner of the A & M mentioned that the old Frisco tunnel south of Fort Smith was not repaired/improved in the 1960s like the Winslow tunnel was.

    He said he had heard about it being pretty wet in there, but the KCS apparently doesn't have it high on their priority list.

    I guess he's glad his tunnel is relatively dry and well lined.

    Steve M
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 14, 2024
  3. tomd6 (Tom Duggan RIP 2/11/2018)

    tomd6 (Tom Duggan RIP 2/11/2018) Passed Away February 11, 2018

    The Jenson Tunnel was built in late 1885 and early 1886 by the Fort Smith & Southern (FS&S) Railroad, a Frisco controlled company that merged with the parent company in February 1887.

    It was the vehicle used by the Frisco to build across what was then Indian Territory to the Texas border. The tunnel was 1,092 feet in length according to the ICC Valuation survey of 1918. I believe about one-half of the tunnel is unlined stone with the remainder being cut stone, brick and timber. It is about 14 feet wide at the narrowest point and averages about 20 feet above the rail head.

    The tunnel, also called Backbone Tunnel, after Backbone Mountain, was at one time located in Arkansas. However a boundary adjustment between Arkansas and Oklahoma caused all of the tunnel to be in Oklahoma. I believe it is the only railroad tunnel in Oklahoma.

    Jenson was the location where Frisco trains entered the Mansfield Branch that went to Mansfield on the Rock Island's Memphis to Amarillo line. Jenson at one time had a car repair facility for the coal cars on the Mansfield Branch. The Jenson car yard was gone prior to the 1930s.

    I have also heard that the KCS portion of the Fort Smith branch is a low priority from a maintenance standpoint.

    Tomd6
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 14, 2024
  4. Chuck

    Chuck Member

    Thanks for the information guys.

    It is wet inside. Very similar to a natural cave. It nonetheless is a very neat piece of history.

    I grew up in Mansfield by the way. I loved watching the train go thru. I even hopped 100 to 200 yard rides from time to time as a young teen. Looking back I guess it was quite dangerous, but that was the good ole days.

    In the early 1970s, you could still see where old tracks used to be. The right of way ran diagonally through town right in front of what is now the City Hall building.

    I guess those maybe went to Jenson?
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 14, 2024
  5. tomd6 (Tom Duggan RIP 2/11/2018)

    tomd6 (Tom Duggan RIP 2/11/2018) Passed Away February 11, 2018

    The Frisco removed the tracks between Mansfield and Montreal in 1958.

    The Burlington Northern removed the last of the Mansfield Branch tracks in 1983.

    The last customer was SECO, Inc., an explosives manufacturer at Montreal.

    Tomd6
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 14, 2024
  6. Chuck

    Chuck Member

    I don't know where else to post this, but Tomd6 seems to know quite a bit about the Mansfield area.

    Somewhere in the early to mid 1970s there was a derailment just on the west end of Mansfield. I remember viewing the wreckage. It seemed there was white powder, perhaps lime everywhere.

    Does anyone have any information on this derailment, dates, etc.?

    Thanks,

    Chuck
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 14, 2024
  7. Chuck

    Chuck Member

    Jenson Tunnel pictures.
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 14, 2024
  8. George Harris

    George Harris Member

    Really looks in good shape for its age.

    They sized it generously for the time. 14' wide by 20' at the crown. Even if the minimum crown is 19', that will still handle most things, even piggyback, but of course no double stacks, and Plate F would be close.

    What is the traffic volume through here?

    One a day, or more or less?
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 15, 2024
  9. john

    john FRISCO.org Supporter

    Fort Smith newspaper accounts from 1885 state that the original survey was about 1 1/2 miles east of the Indian Territory line.

    At the time it was surveyed, Frisco was still engaged in an on again/off again fight on the national level for permission to built across "the Territory". The original route as surveyed apparently was entirely in Arkansas and terminated at Hackett. Even if they couldn't cross I.T. Frisco wanted access to the coal in and below Hacket in Arkansas and had already started securing title to coal lands in the area.

    It was literally as construction was starting that Frisco felt legally able to adopt the easier route, still in use by the KCS, which weaves in and out down the Arkansas and Oklahoma line. The newspapers say the original camp of the tunnel construction workers was taken down and moved to the location where the tunnel was eventually constructed just as the construction was about to start. It was realized at the time that the tunnel would be inside the Indian Territory.

    The good folks of Hackett, who had been promised they would be on the route, were very upset and the Frisco issued statements saying that they would not be bypassed. It appears that construction on what came to be called the Mansfield Branch began even before the tunnel had been finished and Hackett got their railroad, even if it wasn't on the main line south.

    The great article by McNair on the history of the Central Division in Frisco-Man, Feb 1917, posted online by Springfield-Green County Library, gives some insight on what was going on.

    He seems to be saying that between Fort Smith and Jenson the parts built in Arkansas were built by Fort Smith and Southern Railway Company, an Arkansas Corporation, while the parts in Indian Territory had to be legally built by the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway Company itself.

    The issue may have been moot by the time the Frisco started building from Jenson south toward Paris, TX.

    Does anyone have any additional information on this?
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 15, 2024
  10. john

    john FRISCO.org Supporter

    In case someone is interested I thought I'd add a few more details to the previous posts.

    Source for relocation of the tunnel location into Indian Territory is the Fort Smith Elevator newspaper, 2 April 1886. The tunnel was never really wanted, but in the end there was little choice. The only real question was where to build it.

    To see what might have been involved without the tunnel, the original route surveys were published in the Elevator, 24 September 1880. I'd be interested if anyone knows the exact completion date for the tunnel. The 30 July 1886 paper, again the Fort Smith Elevator, stated that the construction was still in progress, the grade from Fort Smith to the tunnel was almost complete, and the "track laying will begin soon."

    The railroad to Hackett is a good example of how facts can be misleading. Hacket was located 1.7 miles down the Little Rock & Texas (LR&T), Mansfield Branch, from Jenson. The LR&T was incorporated 28 March, 1887. The only problem is the tracks to Hackett were actually finished in late 1886.

    By February the first Kansas & Texas Coal Company mine south of Hackett was already completed and connected to the main line by rail. The Arkansas History Commission has a great photo of what I believe is the tipple structure which was said to be the largest in the south at that time.

    The original tracks were described at the time as "a branch of the Frisco Extension" (a spur) and it was not until later that they were incorporated retroactively into the Little Rock & Texas which officially began at Jenson, AR.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 15, 2024
  11. Coonskin

    Coonskin Member

    Hi!

    I'm arriving a bit late to this party of this thread, but perhaps I can inject a bit more pieces to the puzzle.

    My family moved to the Mansfield, Arkansas area in January of 1969. I was nearing my 17th birthday. Having a lifelong interest in railroads and railroading, I immediately began to search out the area for rail activity. Of course, at that time the east/west Rock Island was still very active.

    I found obscure rails that terminated at the outskirts of Huntington, Arkansas. I also recall there was still a small bit of coal loading going on at a small tipple just on the western edge of Huntington. Standing on the small highway bridge just west of Huntington proper, looking to the north you could see the rails bending around toward the west, and a few hoppers sitting at the small loading facility.

    A few months later, a gondola was spotted just west of Huntington. In retrospect, this may have been in advance of pulling the rail from Huntington back to the Central mine. Within a year of moving to the Mansfield area, the remaining rails between the Central mine area and Huntington were no longer being used, with most of it pulled.

    I later learned these rails to be the remnant of the Mansfield Branch, then being called the Central Branch. A 1975 Southwestern Division Employee Timetable I have lists the in-service track of the Central Branch being from Jenson, Frisco's spelling, at MP 429.3 to Central at MP 444.0. Central was a total of 5.3 miles east of Montreal.

    In March of 1976 I made a photo foray into the Jenson/Hacket/Montreal area, photographing a pair of Mandarin orange and white GP7s switching the Montreal Lead, track leading to a coal washing plant. At that time, it was obvious that the track past Midland was no longer in serviceable condition. However, the rails were still in place east of Midland to the Central area, not being removed until the early 1980s.

    The reason I know this is because one day I took a "scenic detour", and crossing the paved over rails at Midland, noticed the pavement had been broken up and the small trees growing up between the rails on the eastern side had been cut down. Excited, I was hoping that coal was getting ready to be mined again.

    This was during some of the "coal boom" that railroads were experiencing. Alas, it turned out to be the Frisco had opened it in order to remove the steel deck bridges for reuse elsewhere. Removing the bridges effectively severed the line east of Midland forever.

    The coal washer at Montreal was still shipping coal into the late 1970s and early 1980s. I have a few poor quality slides of a Frisco GP15-1 powered train making the trek to Montreal in October of 1979. I also have onboard slides taken in the early 1980s as I rode with an engineer friend out the branch.

    It was this trip that I was first sat in the seat of a locomotive and begin to be taught how to run an engine. I have several slides of BN power plying the ever-increasing weed-strewn branch to retrieve a handful of cars, or in the last months dynamite ingredients.

    I left the region in December of 1983. Coal activity at Montreal really wound down under BN ownership. In fact, I really don't think I have any pictures of coal being handled just prior to our departure from the region, only dynamite ingredients.

    While gone from the region, the rails were removed. Upon returning to the region in May of 1090, it was all gone. you could barely find traces of roadbed where it passed through Hacket.

    As for the KCS operation of the former Frisco's Poteau/Ft. Smith track, the KCS operates a daily, except Saturday, freight to/from Ft. Smith. The KCS "Ft. Smith Dodger" originates in Heavener, OK and leaves the KCS main at Poteau to begin its journey over former Frisco rails. Typical power is a pair of EMD GP40s or GP38s, sometimes with wide cabs.

    The A&M job I work most often has to deal with the Dodger all too much. They cost us a 45 minute delay today as we waited for them to clear our main of their cars so we could head south. :D

    Customers for the KCS Dodger include corn and soymeal for the large OK Feed mill, CO2 gas for the Sandhill facility, inbound/outbound freight for the Ft. Smith Railroad, and inbound/outbound freight for the railroad I work for, the A&M.

    From the KCS, we receive paper for Dixie Cup/Georgia Pacific, feed ingredients for ProPak Co., paper products for customers on A&M rails in Northwest Arkansas, empty Norton cars returning to Norton at Ft. Smith, and other odds and ends.

    Well enough for this novelette.

    Hope some of this is a help.

    Andre Ming
    Poteau, OK
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 15, 2024
  12. Coonskin

    Coonskin Member

    Just a quick update:

    The pictures I have of the bridge removal are dated 10/1979. Not only were they removing the steel deck span, but also other wooden trestles were getting their stringers removed for reuse elsewhere.

    It was painfully obvious that the Central Branch was in its death throes.

    Andre Ming
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 15, 2024
  13. john

    john FRISCO.org Supporter

    I thought I'd post a few current external photos of the former Frisco, now KCS, Jenson Tunnel through Backbone Mountain south of Fort Smith.

    The first three were taken at the south portal. The fourth photo is an original bridge over part of the Ivy Branch of the James Fork River. The bridge is roughly 1/2 mile or so south of the tunnel.
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 15, 2024
  14. railroadguy65

    railroadguy65 Member

    Hi John,

    I am thinking of another trip down that way.

    Is this tunnel easy to get to?

    How far of a hike is it?

    By the way, nice photos.

    Paul
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 15, 2024
  15. Chuck

    Chuck Member

    I'm not John, but the hike would be around a mile from the Hackett side of the tunnel.

    You can find the closest road to park on from Google maps or Microsoft Live Search.

    It's was a very neat experience for me.

    Chuck
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 15, 2024
  16. john

    john FRISCO.org Supporter

    I walked up from Jensen, on the south side, so I'd guess that was about a 3 mile round trip.

    I passed one grade crossing on the way, so it's probably possible to drive closer, but I was interested in the remains of the old wye at Jensen. It was a beautiful day and I sure needed the exercise. I don't know an easy way to reach it from the Hackett side. Access to Wofford Lake is gated/restricted.

    On a lighter note, be prepared to encounter strange creatures. At least all I saw was its tracks!
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 15, 2024
  17. railroadguy65

    railroadguy65 Member

    Thanks to both John and Chuck for the information! :)

    Can not wait to get down that way to get some photographs. :D
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 15, 2024
  18. Chuck

    Chuck Member

    Please do post them here when you do.

    John, could that be an Emu?

    By the way, we saw some wild pigs the last time we were there. They were eating corn that was fallen from the train.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 15, 2024
  19. john

    john FRISCO.org Supporter

    I've shown the photo to several people and everyone agrees that they think it was an emu.

    What was it doing out there?

    I might as well post a few more photos.

    Here are some more details of the south portal.
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 15, 2024
  20. railroadguy65

    railroadguy65 Member

    Looking for oil of course.

    haha :D
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 15, 2024

Share This Page