Tim, The ship you are refering to was the CSS Hunley, the first submarine to successfully atack an enemy warship. It was recovered from Charleston SC harbor on Aug. 8, 2000. One of the leaders of the recovery effort was novelist Clive Cussler ("Raise the Titanic") The eight crew members were reinterred in Charleston on April 17th, 2004. The funeral was attended by 10,000 Civil War reenactors and historians of both Union and Confederate persuasion. I, unfortunately was unable to attend due to a broken shoulder.

Here is another site:

http://fdelaitre.club.fr/Richmond.htm

I have been spelling it wrong. It is two words. Quite a bit of information shows up in a Google search. Apparently the tunnel still eats buildings and streets from time to time. The locomotive is said to be only 100 feet from the west portal. From 100 to 200 feet of tunnel caved in and 300 workers ran for their lives to the east portal.

After the accident, the tunnel was filled with sand and the portals were sealed.

RTK

Back in 1998 the Richmond Times-Dispatch did a couple of articles on the Church Hill Tunnel and its collapse. Reporter Mark Holmburg and a T-D photographer entered the tunnel but didn't get too far (as I recall) before it was deemed too unstable and too dangerous to continue further. CSX subsequently sealed the portals. T-D offers a free synopsis of the articles in its on-line archives and has the entire articles available for purchase.

How far down under the ground surface could it be? The article states the engine made it to within 100' of the portal and the RR dug down to the engine to recover the body of the engineer. Would think with modern equipment, the area above could be excavated and the engine lifted out of the ground.

But I agree with some of the other posts, what justifies such an expense?

Yes, being withing 100 feet of the portal does not sound like it would be that hard to get at. This tunnel does not enter the vertical face of a mountain. On the contrary, the photos suggest a gradually rising hill. So it would seem rather easy to daylight the first 100 feet of the tunnel to get at the engine.

The cost might be under $50,000. That is a lot to spend on a locomotive as a locomotive, especially considering the condition that it is likely in. But if the objective were to recover not simply a useable locomotive, but rather, an historical artifact with a deeply personal story to tell, then the cost justification is by a different set of rules.

If I had such a locomotive buried in my backyard, I would dig down to it. There is no question about it.

Here is an idea:

Dig into the site horizontally while building a small access tunnel that is safely lined. Then, working through this tunnel, meticulously excavate and stabilize the volume surrounding the locomotive. Restore and stabilize the roof and walls of the tunnel to its historic lining. Add lighting and make the underground site a place that could be visited, so that the lost locomotive could be experienced in its entire historical context.

That is what I would do if it were in my backyard.

RTK