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Train stuck in time
It may be removed from tunnel where it was crushed in 1925
BY TIFFANY HSU
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, June 27, 2006


Locomotive 231 may finally finish its long-delayed run, nearly 81 years after it was trapped under the rubble of a Church Hill tunnel cave-in.

At a City Hall news conference, Richmond Mayor L. Douglas Wilder said the Chesapeake & Ohio train may be removed from its Jefferson Hill Park tomb, where the engine and 10 flatcars have rested since 1925.

Joined by Pete Claussen, chairman and CEO of Gulf & Ohio Railways, and Charles F. Bryan Jr., president and CEO of the Virginia Historical Society, Wilder said the locomotive is an important, if deadly, symbol of Richmond's past.

An engineer and two workers were killed when the Church Hill tunnel crumpled onto the train Oct. 2, 1925. During the tunnel's construction in the 1870s, it claimed a dozen more lives.

Because of the tunnel area's shaky history, a feasibility study will be conducted by Richmond contractor Wesley Blankenship to determine the suitability of the site before officials decide to extract the train.

Cameras will be inserted through 6-inch-wide holes drilled through the tunnel's roof to photograph the exact position and condition of the locomotive. Workers will also measure the stability of the tunnel's infrastructure.

Drilling will likely begin July 10 and will continue for several days depending on weather conditions, Claussen said.

Wilder said he is reasonably certain the locomotive will be uncovered.

"It's in pretty good shape," he said.

The engine is buried under about 20 to 30 feet of dirt near the west end of the 4,000-foot passage. The initial survey and possible recovery effort will be focused on a 150-foot stretch of land, Blankenship said.

To bring up the train, workers will clear out a section of the tunnel in front of the vehicle and then pull the locomotive forward and out of the hill, Claussen said.

The current landscape of Jefferson Hill Park will remain intact, Blankenship said. If the locomotive is removed, workers will build a retaining wall around the site to maintain the hill's slope.

Cost estimates for the project will be made once the study is completed, Claussen said. Some groups, including The History Channel, have already made donations toward the removal effort.

Officials said unearthing the locomotive from its relatively shallow location should not be too expensive. Wilder's press secretary, Linwood Norman, said the city will not be contributing public funds to the effort. "It's not real far down," Claussen said. "It's not an enormous amount of money that's necessary."

In addition to the body of the engine, excavators may end up removing the remains of the two workers believed to still be in the tunnel, officials said. The engineer's body was retrieved a few days after the accident.

After Wilder and Bryan reminisced yesterday about train-related ghost stories and legends from their youth, both promised that any human remains found during the project would be treated with dignity and given a proper burial.

The plan to retrieve the train was conceived by Claussen, who had heard about efforts several years ago to raise the Civil War submarine C.S.S. Hunley from the Charleston, S.C., harbor and to restore the "Glacier Girl," a WWII plane preserved in a Greenland icecap. If the Church Hill locomotive is successfully pulled out, the process might be chronicled in a TV documentary, officials said.

The engine would be exhibited on Virginia Historical Society property in Richmond, where it could represent a link between the city and state's pre- and post-Civil War history.

"There's a tendency in Virginia to forget that there's history after Appomattox," Bryan said. "To emphasize the importance of railroading . . . this object can tell that story."

What type of engine is it?

Per this link:

http://www.steamlocomotive.com/lists/VA.shtml


It is a class "A-5", 4-4-0, Baldwin, Built 1903.

I know I'm missing it, but where is this?
Thanks

Church Hill Tunnel, Richmond, VA. Another link from the flimsies:

http://www.nbc12.com/home/3230436.html

-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

Surviving World Steam Project

Actually, assuming that the loco in question is indeed C&O steam locomotive 231 and it wasn't on a train numbered 231 or something like that, this information is probably inaccurate, inasmuch as Staufer's "C&O Power" has a photo of C&O 4-4-0 231 making a station stop in Orange, Va. in 1929..... said loco was an acquisition from the C&O's Chicago, Cincinnati & Louisville, which C&O acquired in 1910.

Assuming that the book's photo caption is accurate, and referring to other roster info in the book, it appears that the C&O loco in the tunnel would be a Belpaire-boilered 2-8-0 of class G-4, one of 36 in the class built by Schenectady, Rogers, and Richmond in 1889-91; 231 would be a 1889 graduate of Rogers. (Too bad--had it been a Richmond product, there would be greater local support, or at least justification, for uncovering the loco.) The rest of the class was retired between 1921 and 1930, with the last survivors having been renumbered to 620-643 in their final years.

Mr. Mitchell:

The engine in the tunnel is indeed 4-4-0 # 231, an American Standard class A-5 built by Baldwin in 1903 for the Chicago, Cincinnati & Louisville as its # 54. This information by the way, is from The Chesapeake and Ohio Historical Society's MAGAZINE Vol. XXI, No. 7 of July 1989. As to a photograph supposedly taken of # 231 in 1929, that could be explained by one of two things:

Staufer's caption in his "C&O Power" book was incorrect OR the C&O later numbered a different 4-4-0 as # 231. Either explanation makes sense.

Les Beckman (Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum/North Judson, Indiana)

FYI, HVRM is currently operating Saturday caboose trains over the right-of-way of the old CC&L between North Judson and LaCrosse, Indiana. This is one of the few segments of the CC&L still in operation, and the only place where one can ride this C&O predecessor.

I seem to recall that Pete Claussen is also on the board of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

Steve

On All Things Considered on NPR yesterday afternoon, they spoke with a man who entered the tunnel 8 years ago and is involved with the dig. They will drill about eight holes and send cameras down to see what they can see. The engine has been underwater for many of the eighty years so it probably isn't in very good shape. Time will tell!

Later!
Mr. Ed

Ed:

The engine (and other equipment) may be under dirt and suffered from water seepage but "under water" may be a bit of a misnomer. My guess is that she had a wooden cab and it may have been destroyed in the cave-in. How much the boiler, smokebox, tender, etc. may have fared probably depends on just how much dirt, stone, etc. came down on them. And depending upon just where the cave-in occurred, and how much additional tunnel ceiling has come down in the intervening years, some of the equipment may even have been in an "airless pocket" without direct damage. Brings up an interesting question though; would a buried engine be expected to be in better condition than one under water for the same amount of time?

Les

If park locomotives and locomotives that were retired, stuffed and mounted indoors are basketcases, I wouldn't get my hopes up for a locomotive that has been in a collapse.

OTOH, they've pulled at least two engines out of a pile of rip-rap in New Zealand where they lay for ~70 years and restored them to operation.

I think it's a matter of context. The locomotive was kept in the tunnel because it was old, fairly disposable at the time, and two men were killed at the site. I think the backing for restoration would be negligable, since it has more historical cachet as "the ghost train" or "the train time forgot". Nobody loves operational steam more than I do, but it would seem a display in nearly as found condition would be far more intriguing. I agree with the ideas that humidity and environmental conditions will have had profound affects on this train, but enough money can restore anything. There are many other locomotives that might be attended to first.

According to the story on ATC on NPR, the guy said they were widening the tunnel at the time of the collapse. A few bricks were removed and the roof came down because the ground was so wet from seepage. They recovered the engineer but two others that were known to be in the tunnel were left. At the time, there was quite a bit of day laborers used and no records were kept as to who was in there. The only reason they know there were two other men in there is because the families showed up at the site asking if there fathers/husbands had been found. Sadly since these men were black, there really wasn't much done to recover their bodies.

The guy that was being interviwed said that he went in about fifty feet at the high end of the tunnel and they encountered water so the general concensus is that since the train was down in the lower end of the tunnel, it is under dirt and sand and this dirt and sand is in water. So the idea that this train is in good shape remains to be seen. But if what he says is true, it probaly has rusted way by now or is in such bad shape that it will never run again.

Later!
Mr. Ed

During the week of July 10 we plan to drill 8 to 12 six inch holes through the tunnel and insert a camera so we can assess the condition of the locomotive and the tunnel. That should settle the questions about the wheel arrangement and condition of the locomotive and provide enough information to develop a cost estimate for its removal.
The feasibility study is being done by Gulf & Ohio Railways in conjunction with the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond. It has the strong support of Mayor Doug Wilder.
After we get done drilling I will let everyone know what we found.
Pete Claussen