Railway and Siphon


The East Low Canal flows through Grant County in eastern Washington State. It's a part of the federal Columbia Basin Project.

Here, a tresle carrying a spur of the Milwaukee railroad follows the East Low Canal. The railway is actively maintained, though I'm not sure of its present ownership.

The canal itself crosses this gulch, with a feature the USGS topo maps label as a "siphon". I would have thought a simple aqueduct would be the engineer's choice here. However, an enclosed tunnel carries the canal under the gulch. There is a pump mechanism in place, probably necessary only occasionally to prime the siphon.

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