Unlucky Tunnel #13

Last tunnel post, I promise!

We finally got on the right track and found the last tunnel we were looking for, tunnel #13, or the Bond's Creek Tunnel. It was possible to drive almost right up to it, and after walking 3 miles or so the wrng way (but finding the cool abandoned tunnel in the process) I was ready for easy.


The road bordered the trail for a good distance, right through the almost abandoned town of Cornwallis--which was named, of course for the Revolutionary War British general by that name. Why he was memorialized in a small Virginia town (we weren't West Virginia yet when this little town was formed, probably in the very early 1860's) I don't know.

One of several abandoned homes along the trail

You can see by the doorlight windowthat this was once a very nice house.

A chimney testifies to what was once home to someone long ago.

I believe this might be what's left of a water tower.

Someone has started renovating this old house.

 Built in 1853-1854, the Bond's Creek tunnel is in remarkably good condition.

This tunnel was one of the tunnels improved in the early 1960's by B&O in the clearances project to make it taller and wider. At 352 feet it is not very long, but it does have a slight curve. It is approached by crossing a bridge over Bond's Creek.

North tunnel portal

I call this unlucky tunnel 13 because of a tragedy that took place there about 60 years ago.

On Memorial Day, May 31, 1956, the B&O westbound National Limited passenger train passed through the tunnel, and as it came around the curve in the tunnel found that a rock slide was partially blocking the tracks. There was no time to stop. The train slammed into the rock pile as it emerged from Tunnel #13. The engine fell off the tracks and fell off the side of the bridge into Bond's Creek Forty-five people were injured in the crash, and the engineer, Joseph C. Riley, and the fireman, Paul R. Hooten, died in the wreckage. Among the injured were members of the train crew, railroad employees and 29 passengers.

From North Bed Rail Trail brochure

Another train had passed through the tunnel only a hour or so before, and the tracks were clear then. How quickly disaster can strike.

Today the tunnel is a serene place, filled with birdsong and the sound of water rippling in the nearby Hughes River.

There is a shelter just outside the tunnel, a perfect place to picnic. We have plans to go back and do just that--Larry can fish in the river and I can write in the shelter, and we'll have a picnic too. The day we were there it was quiet with no other visitors, but I imagine in summer it might be a busy place, with bikes, walkers, and horses passing by.

That was the last of our adventures on the North Bend Rail trail for this trip, but we plan to go back and see the other 5 tunnels sometime and learn their history as well. Such fascinating stuff, and it's free for the finding!

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

The Abandoned Tunnel: #17

Tunnel #17 was a bonus--we were looking for #13 and were, once again, going the wrong way. A passing hiker told us, "There's an abandoned tunnel about a half mile from here." Abandoned? Why yes, I wanted to see that!

This tunnel was bypassed during the "clearances" project in the early 1960's, when the B&O Railroad decided it would be worth the trouble to widen and heighten the many tunnels on the line from Grafton to Parkersburg--or in some cases, to "daylight" the tunnels by blasting out the tops, and in at least two cases, to abandon a tunnel entirely and build a new tunnel or blast out a new cut close by. In retrospect, this expensive and dangerous project was too late. Rail service was already giving way to other means of transportation, and in 20 years or so the line between Clarksburg and Parkersburg would be closed down.

One of 36 bridges on the rail trail

In the case of Tunnel #17, a new cut was created, leaving the old tunnel no longer needed. I suppose blastig techniques had improved a great deal in the 100 years between the construction of the rail line in the 1860's and the improvements being made in the 1960's. Another reason, according to the website WVNC Rails, is that the rock in some areas was not stable enough to allow for tunnel enlargement.

Off to one side of the traill, the tunnel portal. 

We found the tunnel to be in surprisingly good conditions considering it was put out of service some 50 years ago. There are two dates on this tunnel. On one end the marker says 1867, and on the other, 1868. Perhaps it took a full year to complete? This tunnel is 452 feet long, so not one of the longer ones.

The date is barely visible in this photo, 1867.

A bit ghostly? Inside the tunnelsthe temperature stay lower than the outside temperatures, which is probably what created this misty illusion....right?...

Larry opted not to walk through but I was curious (and we know what curiosity did to the cat!). I wondered if the tunnel was passable, and it had a curve that looked intriguing. So in I went. "See you on the other side!" Larry said, and I wondered if he was talking earthly or heavenly sides.

The light at the end! 

I was intrigued by this odd mark on the wall. 

There was some deterioration of the stonework in the tunnel, and the fact that it was stone and not brick made me wonder if brick was added to the other tunnels on the line during the clearance project. It seems likely.

I believe this stone "cup" holding wild plans may have been a ventilation or seepage trough.

And the date, 1868.

This is the location of the former Tunnel #16, I believe. 14, 15, and 16 were all daylighted during the clearance project.

I made it through unscathed, and did indeed meet Larry on the other side.  We walked back to the van, and drove to the right place to find our actual goal for the day, Tunnel #13, the Bond's Creek tunnel.


Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Tunnel #7

After visiting Silver Run and looking for marbles in Cairo, we still had enough daylight left to hunt for one more tunnel. We settled on finding Tunnel #7, also known as Calhoun's Tunnel. This one, 770 feet long, is located in the small town of Pennsboro. Once again we had to ask someone for directions as our map was not clear. The man we asked was helpful but when we tried to follow his directions we were still confused, so we pulled over once again to look at the map. To our surprise, the man we'd asked directions from pulled in behind us and offered to lead us to the right place. What a nice guy.

When we got to the parking area beside the rail trail, he asked us if we had a flashlight. Well, I had the one on my phone. The next thing he said surprised me. "Do you have anything for protection? Like a heavy flashlight or something?" He went on to say that there were some not-so-good people in the area, and the tunnel being in a lonesome place, but close enough to the houses where these people lived, well, anything could happen.

You know, I'd never considered the potential danger of these dark, lonely tunnels. Larry took the man at his word, and retrieved a piece of pipe from the van. I was surprised he had it, but he said it was a breaker bar for the lug wrench, in case we had a flat.

Somehow, though, the man's well-meant warning took the fun out of finding tunnel #7. I forged ahead anyway, but Larry was on edge and wary. I admit, I was glad he had the pipe.

So we walked through the tunnel, which actually crossed under US Route 50. I saw many bike tracks in the mud in the tunnel floor, which somehow made me feel better about the place. Still, I was glad to get through it and back again.

You can see how this tunnel takes a slight bend. I am amazed at the brickwork in these tunnels--and at how water trickling down the walls leaves calcium deposits and in some places even forms stalactites.

While this wasn't one of the haunted tunnels, it sure won the prize for creepiness. There must be some story about this tunnel that I have not found, and our informant certainly had his own misgivings about it. Maybe one day I'll come across the tunnel's history.

Burning Bush has naturalized in some places along the trail.

A sassafras leave stands out in gold on green grass.

A huge sycamore leaf, one of many we saw on our walk.

The North Bend Lodge looked pretty welcoming when we returned.

Neither of us were very hungry, but went into the restaurant for a piece of pie (lemon meringue) and some decaf coffee before heading up to our room. Comfort food, maybe? That night I dreamed of trains and tunnels.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

The Silver Run Tunnel

I first heard the story of the haunted Silver Run tunnel about 20 years ago, but it's taken me this long to visit it.

The Silver Run tunnel (#19, about 1376 feet long) is located on the North Bend Rail Trail, not far from the town of Cairo, West Virginia. The North Bend Rail Trail has 10 tunnels included in its 72-mile length, with two abandoned tunnels close by and another 10 places where old tunnels were opened up into cuts, called "daylighting." Mark Twain once referred to the original railroad line as the "Appalachian Subway" because there were so many tunnels.

So far, my husband and I have been through 5 of the remaining tunnels, and explored one of the abandoned tunnels, as well as Eaton Tunnel (#21), a collapsed and sealed tunnel which has a ghost story of its own. You can read the story of Eaton Tunnel in this blog post. There is one more tunnel with stories of a haunting, and another that should have a story because of a horrific train wreck that occurred there.

Here's the general story, and as usual with such folk legends, there are several versions. Basically, there was a young woman who waited at the Silver Run station for her young man. They were to be married, so she was wearing a long white dress. She was beautiful, the story says, with long black hair. Her young man never arrived. Perhaps she jumped, or perhaps she was so upset she just stepped in front of a train without looking. But ever since then, engineers have reported seeing a woman at the mouth of the Silver Run tunnel. She appears when it's too late to stop the train, try as they might, and just before they hit her, she shoots up and over the train. The website West Virginia Haunts and Legends gives a slightly different version, along with an added story about an engineer who scoffs at the story, only to later find that she'd ridden his cowcatcher all the way to Parkersburg.

To get back to Silver Run: we had vague directions from Park staff at North Bend Lodge, and the map they gave us made it look simple enough. We drove into Cairo, found a trail entrance and started walking. It was a chilly but beautiful morning, and we were enjoying the walk when I noticed that we were walking east--and the tunnel was west of town. We turned around and headed back, fortunately before we'd gone too far. We asked for more directions, got some more vague, hand-waving instructions and tried again.

We also dead-ended up here on top of a hil at the old abandoned high school. I bet there are stories here too.

This time we drove a little ways out of town, found a road marked Silver Run Road, so we were sure we'd found the right place. But when we dead-ended in someone's yard we found out we were mistaken again.

The nice lady who lived there came outside and hollered directions over the barking of several dogs (one, a huge mastiff, jumped up on the van door and gave Larry a BIG facelick! Too funny).

Third time was the charm. We found the right parking area and were at the tunnel within minutes.

I was glad that we had it to ourselves for a little while, just to feel the atmosphere. Soon some young men and children arrived, and it got a little noisy. And soon after them, a large group of teenagers came, and they were having a blast whooping and hollering and scaring each other.

Which gave Larry an idea. All along the length of the tunnel are "manholes", which are alcoves just big enough for a man to get out of the way of a coming train.

He tucked himself into one near the western end of the tunnel, and waited.

I was outside the tunnel's western portal entrance at the point, and decided to help him out by staying visible to the approaching teens. I took photos and generally meandered around.

As I waited, I heard some of the teens saying, "Look! There's a black figure up there! What is that?" 

Eventually they came to where Larry was hiding. They were looking at me, probably wondering what I was doing, when Larry jumped out with a loud shout. Those poor kids cleared the ground be several feet! It was so funny--most of them laughed although a couple of the girls gave  Larry some dirty looks. Ah well, they wanted a scare, and they certainly got one! I am just glad Larry didn't get punched. They were very good sports about it.

Larry standing inside the western portal, as these entrance are called.

It was time to leave, although I could have stayed longer--we wanted the kids to have the place to themselves for a while, just as we had.

There is always a good breeze coming out of these tunnels, and it's a cool--or cold one, depending on the outside temperature. When the trains were running through them, the tunnels often got very hot, especially the longer ones like this one, and complicated ventilation systems were put in place to cool them down. (info from WVNCrails.com)

Of course we saw no ghost, and with so much noise from other people there wasn't much chance of hearing or seeing anything, but we enjoyed the walk and finally getting to see this storied place.

Read more about this tunnel and others on the North Bend Rail Trail at WVNCRails website. It's an amazing resource.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.