Church Hill Tunnel
Tunnel abandoned due to collapse in Richmond, Virginia / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Church Hill Tunnel is an old Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) tunnel, built in the early 1870s, which extends approximately 4,000 feet (1,200 meters) under the Church Hill district of Richmond, Virginia, United States. On October 2, 1925, the tunnel collapsed on a work train, killing four men and trapping a steam locomotive and ten flat cars. Rescue efforts only resulted in further collapse, and the tunnel was eventually sealed for safety reasons.
Overview | |
---|---|
Line | Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) |
Location | Richmond, Virginia, U.S. |
Status | Unsafe, sealed |
Start | 37.5361782110294°N 77.42324092557604°W / 37.5361782110294; -77.42324092557604 (West Portal) |
End | 37.52714727530222°N 77.41498622454112°W / 37.52714727530222; -77.41498622454112 (East Portal) |
Operation | |
Opened | 1873 |
Closed | 1925 |
Owner | CSX Transportation |
Technical | |
Line length | approximately 4,000 ft (1,200 m) |
No. of tracks | none at present |
Track gauge | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) |
Portions of the tunnel have continued to wreak havoc above in the years since, and several houses and a wall of a church have been destroyed by sinkholes near 25th and Broad Streets. More recently, tennis courts and the wall of a house seem to have been victims farther east. Long the subject of community speculation and trespassing incidents at its eastern portal, the tunnel is owned by the C&O's successor entity, CSX Transportation.
The tunnel, which is still considered dangerous, was featured in a 1998 newspaper article by Richmond Times-Dispatch reporter Mark Holmberg and photographer P. Kevin Morley, who explored portions from the eastern portal with professional caving personnel and equipment.[1] Efforts to unseal the tunnel and extract the buried work train have been unsuccessful.