Around 3 p.m. on Oct. 2, 1925 — 90 years ago — engineer Tom Mason kissed his wife, left his home and walked to the corner of the block. For some reason, he turned around, went back to his house, and kissed his wife again. Then he headed to the Fulton Yards and climbed aboard locomotive No. 231 along with his fireman, Ben Mosby. He then released the break, opened the throttle and began to pull a string of 10 flatcars into the Church Hill Tunnel so that the construction workers could load them with dirt. The train was beneath Jefferson Park when a few bricks from the tunnel’s roof fell with a splash into pools of water on the tunnel floor. The falling bricks caused the electrical connections to break and the tunnel was thrown into darkness. As the workers began running out of the tunnel, 190 feet of the 4,000 foot tunnel collapsed onto the train.
See also: Route of the Church Hill train tunnel (3/9/2009)
PHOTO: VT Underground
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RT @chpn: Today is the 90th anniversary of the Church Hill Tunnel collapse http://t.co/4SMIk89Ibu
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Right on!
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Where is this part of the tunnel taken at? Below the Chimbo playground?
Yep!
RT @chpn: Today is the 90th anniversary of the Church Hill Tunnel collapse http://t.co/4SMIk89Ibu
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Remembering the Church Hill Train Tunnel on the 90th Anniversary of the collapse. The number of men who died in… http://t.co/HDad7vyRHQ
Today is the 90th anniversary of the Church Hill Tunnel collapse http://t.co/C4du7yEHRg
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And it’s just past the 10th anniversary of the washout of Chimborazo Hill and Playground that occurred during Gaston… Which ultimately led to a nicer Playground sans the crappy pool that used to be there.
My great-grandfather, Harris Stilson, took the historic photo of the east end of the Church HIll Tunnel which you see in lots of places. It isn’t always credited to him or Richmond In Sight but he took the photo years before the collapse, then printed and sold copies after the tunnel caved in and was closed. You can find out about this and other neat Richmond history by going to http://www.richmondinsight.com . The blog arm of RIS has an article about the tunnel collapse and how Harry’s picture got to VCU LIbraries’ digital collection, which is how most folks access it. That blog is Richmond Views.
Where’s the other comments???