C&O 4-4-0 in Church Hill Tunnel Richmond, VA

Ron Travis · **Joined:** Sun May 15, 2005 2:22 pm **Posts:** 1543

Five million is indeed a lot to spend on that locomotive, but even $75,000 is too much to spend if the endeavor is viewed simply as the acquisition of the locomotive. To give it any hope of being worthwhile, the project must be seen as closing the loop on a fascinating historical legend whereby the locomotive is a symbol of that legend, not a used piece of machinery. But in any case, I think the challenge is more politics than it is engineering. The tunnel has a well-earned reputation for making trouble on the surface. I understood that there was a fair amount of neighborhood resistance to the planned recovery for reasons ranging from damaging surface structures to disturbing a gravesite. I kind of expected city officials to prefer to let sleeping dogs lie regarding this plan. I doubt that even five million dollars rises to anywhere near what it would take to get the job done by the time everyone involved would feel safe to proceed.

Alexander D. Mitchell IV · **Posted:** Tue Mar 04, 2008 11:26 pm

A friend of mine who has been reading about Church Hill Tunnel here and elsewhere sent me photos that he took this past weekend. For a couple reasons he wants to remain anonymous, but gave me permission to post these two photos here for your enlightenment. I set up the Flickr account especially for this purpose, since we can't yet directly upload photos here. Caption info is what he added to the photos he sent me. I tried for a half-hour to upload the images directly to no avail; the links will have to do.....

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lner4472rypn/2311762836/

"This is the west portal of Church Hill Tunnel, located at the end of an alley near North 18th Street and East Marshall Street. While a work train and crew was working inside the tunnel about 400 feet from where this photo was taken the tunnel suddenly collapsed in 1925. After several failed attempts to retrieve the bodies of the C&O employees and 4-4-0 No. 231, C&O sealed this portal with concrete in 1926. "
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lner4472rypn/2311749530/

"This is the east portal of Church Hill Tunnel, which is not sealed and has only a chain link fence installed at its entrance. It is located near Williamsburg Road and 31st Street, below Libby Terrace Park. Getting to this location requires a difficult hike down a steep path; going further than from where this photo was taken would require a pair of waterproof boots due to the water accumulated at the mouth of the tunnel."
Personal PS: The photographer in question is an experienced nature photographer, and I think he has pretty high standards about "difficult hike" and "steep path". You have been forewarned.

JimBoylan · **Posted:** Wed Mar 05, 2008 12:11 pm

Other, slightly older photos, show rail in the East Portal, and a bulkhead some distance inside. Newspaper articles tell that when the bulkhead is breached, sand or dirt can be found to have been packed inside. It has settled, leaving room to crawl in some distance, but not as far as the train.

Richard Glueck · **Posted:** Wed Mar 05, 2008 1:02 pm

An invitation for some fool to crawl in and start a collapse! If this is ever opened or investigated, they are going to need structural and geological engineers on hand.

Trainlawyer · **Posted:** Wed Mar 05, 2008 2:30 pm

My own feeling is that since this is a grave we should simply let it be.

GME

Les Beckman · **Joined:** Tue Aug 02, 2005 1:25 pm **Posts:** 6482

Trainlawyer wrote:

My own feeling is that since this is a grave we should simply let it be.

GME

GME -

When this accident originally happened, there was a major effort to recover the engineers body, at the families request. I seem to recall that they dug down through the hill to eventually make the recovery. The bodies of the missing laborer's were not recovered and being minorities, no effort was apparently undertaken to try to recover them. Not sure how the families of those men feel about it today. Would they want the bodies recovered and laid to rest in a family plot with a proper ceremony? Or, as you say, simply to let it be?

Les

Dave · **Posted:** Wed Mar 05, 2008 7:11 pm

And why pander to romantic notions about remains having any intrensic sensibility of their own in any case......or encourage emotional reactionism? Any predator (or bacterium) knows intuitively our bodies are all pretty much just a source of protein at the final reckoning. Some scientists measured souls as weighing 3 ounces and leaving with the last breath, so if one believes in souls, concerns about their hanging around are irrelevant as well.

Of course, if mine were more esthetic I might feel differently, but feelings don't enter into it.

If there is any benefit to archaeologically excavating this site, perhaps it should be done.......there might be things of interest to learn. If there is a need to remove the potential engineering problem in having the hill undermined by a tunnel carrying running water, perhaps also. Otherwise it is a moot point. The cost of exploring this site for the purpose of gaining more rusty iron is way more than the potential benefit.

Now, there is supposed to be a 4-4-0 under a paved road in NC that may not have any skeletons associated with it we might want to find out about.

dave

whodom · **Posted:** Wed Mar 05, 2008 10:54 pm

Dave wrote:

Now, there is supposed to be a 4-4-0 under a paved road in NC that may not have any skeletons associated with it we might want to find out about.

dave

That's a good one Dave. Whatever did become of the supposedly planned excavation of that locomotive, noted in Railfan many years ago?

Dave · **Posted:** Thu Mar 06, 2008 8:14 am

Nothing so far. I don't have a lot of information about it, perhaps somebody directly involved can contribute something better.

dave

Ron Travis · **Joined:** Sun May 15, 2005 2:22 pm **Posts:** 1543

Those are interesting photos. It certainly is an evocative site, considering the history, the internal contents, and the extant portals of the tunnel frozen in time. If anything develops with the site, it will have to satisfy a bewildering array of concerns. Whatever that is, it has probably not been thought of yet. If I were to visit the site, I would want to see the layout of the city that is on top of the tunnel, just to get a feel for what is threatened by the tunnel's instability.

wesp · **Posted:** Thu Mar 06, 2008 10:17 pm

Here you go, from 1995:

Quote:

buried locomotive

State archaeologists have confirmed that a steam engine, possibly dating back to the 1870s, lies a few feet beneath the intersection of U.S. 301 and North Carolina 186 at Garysburg, North Carolina. This autumn it is hoped to recover what may be the oldest locomotive in the state.

How did it get there? According to Steven Ward, chairman of the Weldon Railroad Museum Foundation, the story goes back to 1933. Road crews were widening Highway 301 starting at the Virginia border and when they reached Garysburg they found the locomotive in the right-of-way.

Apparently used on one of the state's first railroads, it was later used to haul logs. When the logging company went out of business, the locomotive was left to rust. The state couldn't get the last owners to move the engine but they secured a court order giving them permission to dispose of it. A former worker in the North Carolina Highway Department said they couldn't move it - so they dug a pit and buried it!

Last winter a Weldon police detective went to Garysburg with a metal detector and traced the lines of an engine facing north. A test excavation by the state Division of Archives and History showed the engine is apparently in good condition. It may take a month or more to excavate the engine this fall if the state approves the $49,000 cost. Then the engine will be sprayed with a preservative to keep it from rusting. The man who toppled the engine into the pit 61 years ago is excited about the effort to recover the lost locomotive. "I would like to go over and watch them dig it up. I never got to take a picture of it before. I never thought I'd see it again." (Central South Carolina Chapter via NRHS News)

Source: http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/8199/cbs9509.html

bristolian · **Posted:** Thu Apr 26, 2012 7:23 am

Hello everyone,

I've just returned to this forum after having PC issues a couple of years ago and losing the bookmark!...
Have there been an developments at all regarding the retrieval of these locos?

Very Best Wishes,
Bob.

Frisco1522 · **Posted:** Thu Apr 26, 2012 11:36 am

Meanwhile divers are busy in a quarry in PA.............

Richard Glueck · **Posted:** Thu Apr 26, 2012 11:41 am

Frisco, the difference being that the 4-4-0 is known to really be there.
Still, everyone of us is riveted to the edge of our chairs, regarding the quarry!

Dave · **Posted:** Thu Apr 26, 2012 11:55 am

But are the chair rivets the correct size and in the correct locations based on the photos or better yet the HO gage model? Have you counted to make sure?

dave