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Historical Highway MarkersChurch Hill TunnelSA-90
About 200 feet east is the western portal of the Church Hill Tunnel. On 11 Dec. 1873, Chesapeake and Ohio locomotive number 2 passed through the tunnel, marking the completion of one of the longest tunnels in the United States. The tunnel was being repaired on 2 Oct. 1925, when Chesapeake and Ohio locomotive number 231 entered the tunnel heading west, pulling ten flat cars. The train was near the western portal when suddenly 190 feet of the tunnel collapsed, trapping and killing railroad workers, some of whom remain entombed in the tunnel along with the train.
Department of Historic Resources, 2011 See a problem? Report it to HighwayMarkers@dhr.virginia.gov. |
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References/Bibliographic Citation: Walter S. Griggs, Jr., “The Church Hill Tunnel”, Railroad History no. 135, Fall 1976; “’The Train That’s Never Been Found’: The Tunnel Collapse of 1925”, Richmond Times-Dispatch, 8 May 1949; Katie Letcher Lyle, “The Church Hill Tunnel Disaster”, Scalded to Death by the Steam: Authentic Stories of Railroad Disasters and the Ballads that were Written about Them, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1991, p. 116-124 |