Church Hill Tunnel

Tunnel abandoned due to collapse in Richmond, Virginia

Church Hill Tunnel is an old Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) tunnel, built in the early 1870s, which extends approximately 4000 feet (1219 m) 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. 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. Efforts to unseal the tunnel and extract the buried work train have been unsuccessful.

Church Hill Tunnel was completed in 1873 for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O), which was seeking to extend its trackage (of the former Virginia Central Railroad) from a terminus in the Shockoe Valley section of downtown Richmond to connect with their new Peninsula Subdivision extending approximately 75 mile (121 km) southeast down the Virginia Peninsula to reach Collis Potter Huntington's new coal pier in Newport News, Virginia. The tracks to the new tunnel left the old Virginia Central line west of 17th Street and curved southeasterly to enter the tunnel east of N. 18th Street and north of E. Marshall Street under Cedar Street, on the western slope of what is technically Union Hill. The east end of the tunnel appeared just north of Williamsburg Road near 31st Street, below Libby Terrace Park. The Peninsula Subdivision was completed and opened in late 1881, and the coal flowed eastward for export in massive quantities.

The construction of the tunnel was problematic. Unlike the bedrock through which the C&O carved its western tunnels, Richmond's blue marl clay shrink swell soil tended to change with rainfall and groundwater, causing deadly cave ins during the construction. The tunnel has remained troublesome throughout its life due to groundwater seepage and safety concerns, even after abandonment in 1925.

In the 1890s, the C&O acquired the Richmond and Alleghany Railroad (R&A) which had been built east from the Blue Ridge Mountains along the towpath of the James River and Kanawha Canal, proving an alternate "water level" route to Richmond following the north bank of the James River and avoiding a more circuitous route which crossed the North Mountain and Afton Mountain via the Blue Ridge Tunnel and reached Richmond via the former Virginia Central Railroad. However, the R&A terminated at Richmond's Byrd Street Station in the downtown area (7th and Canal Streets), and did not have a track connection to the C&O which ended at Shockoe Bottom at Broad Street, some distance away. The Virginia State Capitol and its grounds were directly between the two terminals, so creativity for a less direct connection was needed. To utilize the new "water level" line to ship coal to Newport News, and to avoid the troublesome tunnel as an added benefit, the C&O constructed a 3 mile (5 km) double track elevated viaduct along the riverfront extending between the area of Hollywood Cemetery east past downtown Richmond, the Shockoe Valley, and Church Hill to join the Peninsula Subdivision at what became Fulton Yard east of the tunnel. With a connection just south of the new Main Street Station, it was now possible for traffic to come off the old Virginia Central and enter the Peninsula Subdivision without using the Church Hill Tunnel. Portions of the viaduct became known as the Rivanna Subdivision Trestle (west of Rivanna Junction) and Peninsula Subdivision Trestle (from the former Brown Street Yard through Main Street Station and Rivanna Junction east to Fulton Yard). The viaduct is believed to be the longest in the United States and is still in use by CSX Transportation, the successor entity to the C&O, which also owns the abandoned tunnel. The authorities shut down the streetcar line to the area for several days. At that time there were no homes in the area, as most buildings were around 25th and Broad near Nolde Brothers Bakery where the tunnel crossed the middle of Church Hill. Approximately 200 workmen crawled under flat cars and then escaped out the eastern end of the tunnel, including the fireman Benjamin F. Mosby (who died hours later at Grace Hospital because of burns caused by the ruptured boiler), but the engineer Thomas Joseph Mason was killed; initial reports claimed that, besides Mason, six black laborers were unaccounted for, although the missing number of men was later scaled down to two, identified as day laborers Richard Lewis and “H. Smith”. During the next week, the community anxiously watched rescue efforts, but each time progress was made, further cave ins occurred; only the body of Mason was recovered, on October 10. Their bodies were never found. The following spring, the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC), which regulated the state's railroads, ordered the western end of the tunnel sealed for safety reasons. (C&O switch engine no. 231) and ten flat cars.

The western end is covered with a concrete plug, but for years, the eastern end was used as part of a turning wye for a connection with the Southern Railway's line to West Point and could be entered by venturesome trespassers. Based upon a 1998 exploratory expedition by Richmond Times Dispatch reporter Mark Holmberg, who explored portions from the eastern end with professional caving personnel and equipment, it is believed that most of the western portion of the tunnel which has not caved in is filled with water. The History Channel expressed interest in participating in the project. However, when a hole was drilled through the tunnel's seal and a camera was placed inside, the tunnel was discovered to be filled with silt and water, meaning that an excavation of the tunnel would likely cause it to further collapse and cause several homes on Church Hill to be engulfed by massive sinkholes. The project was put on hold.

The Church Hill Tunnel also has been attached to the urban legend of the Richmond Vampire.