The Blue Ridge Tunnel (also known as the Crozet Tunnel) is a historic railroad

tunnel A tunnel is an underground or undersea passageway. It is dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, or laid under water, and is usually completely enclosed except for the two portals common at each end, though there may be access and ve ...

built during the construction of the Blue Ridge Railroad in the 1850s. The tunnel was the westernmost and longest of four

s engineered by Claudius Crozet to cross the

Blue Ridge Mountains The Blue Ridge Mountains are a Physiographic regions of the United States, physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Highlands range. The mountain range is located in the Eastern United States and extends 550 miles southwest from southern ...

at Rockfish Gap in central

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

. At in length, the tunnel was the longest tunnel in the United States at the time of its completion. The tunnel was used by the Virginia Central Railroad from its opening to 1858, when the line was reorganized as the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad (renamed

Chesapeake and Ohio Railway The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis Potter Huntington, it reached from Virginia's capital city of Rich ...

in 1878). The Chesapeake and Ohio routed trains through the tunnel until it was abandoned and replaced by a new tunnel in 1944. The new tunnel was named the "Blue Ridge Tunnel" as well, although the original tunnel still remains abandoned nearby. The old Blue Ridge Tunnel has since been named a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the

American Society of Civil Engineers The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) is a tax-exempt professional body founded in 1852 to represent members of the civil engineering profession worldwide. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, it is the oldest national engineering soci ...

in 1976. In late 2020, after a decade of stabilization work and restoration as well as access pathway construction, the tunnel was opened to visitors as a

linear park A linear park is a type of park that is significantly longer than it is wide. These linear parks are strips of public land running along canals, rivers, streams, defensive walls, electrical lines, or highways and Esplanade, shorelines. Examples o ...

Construction

The Blue Ridge Railroad was incorporated by the

Commonwealth of Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

in 1849 with Claudius Crozet as chief engineer. Its purpose was to provide a crossing of the

for the Virginia Central Railroad into the Shenandoah Valley. The

Virginia Board of Public Works The Virginia Board of Public Works was a governmental agency which oversaw and helped finance the development of Virginia's transportation-related internal improvements during the 19th century. In that era, it was customary to invest public funds ...

, founded in 1816, supported numerous

internal improvements Internal improvements is the term used historically in the United States for public works from the end of the American Revolution through much of the 19th century, mainly for the creation of a transportation infrastructure: roads, turnpikes, can ...

in the state, owning part of the Virginia Central in stock as well as virtually all of the Blue Ridge Railroad. A

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing i ...

of considerable skill, Crozet had identified the eventual route as early as 1839. Rail service reached

Charlottesville Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city in Virginia, United States. It is the seat of government of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. It is named after Quee ...

by 1851; westward, the railroad closely followed the alignment of the ancient Three Notch'd Road. To protect its investment and enable transportation, the State then incorporated and financed the Blue Ridge Railroad to accomplish the hard and expensive task of crossing the Blue Ridge mountain barrier to the west. Rather than attempting the more formidable Swift Run Gap, the state-owned Blue Ridge Railroad built over the mountains at the next major gap to the south, Rockfish Gap near Afton Mountain. Overseen by Crozet, the crossing was accomplished by building four

s, including the Blue Ridge Tunnel near the top of the pass. Construction began in 1850 and was expected to be completed in three years but the first train passed through the tunnel in 1858 and construction continued until 1860. With construction proceeding from either side a decade before the invention of

dynamite Dynamite is an explosive made of nitroglycerin, sorbents (such as powdered shells or clay), and Stabilizer (chemistry), stabilizers. It was invented by the Swedish people, Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel in Geesthacht, Northern German ...

, the complex was dug through solid granite with only hand drills and

black powder Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, charcoal (which is mostly carbon), and potassium nitrate, potassium ni ...

. The tunnel was less than off perfect alignment when it was holed through on December 29, 1856.'' The Daily Dispatch'' (January 1, 1857), p. 2. Records show that about 800 Irishmen and 40 enslaved African American laborers worked on the tunnel and there were 189 recorded deaths during its construction including men, women, and children who died during a cholera epidemic in 1854. When completed, the Blue Ridge Tunnel was the longest in the United States and one of the longest tunnels in the world, a remarkable feat of engineering. It opened to rail traffic in April 1858, and was considered to be one of the engineering wonders of the modern world. Jameson 2002

American Civil War

During the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

, the infantry under

Confederate A confederation (also known as a confederacy or league) is a political union of sovereign states united for purposes of common action. Usually created by a treaty, confederations of states tend to be established for dealing with critical issu ...

General

Stonewall Jackson Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson (January 21, 1824 – May 10, 1863) was a Confederate general and military officer who served during the American Civil War. He played a prominent role in nearly all military engagements in the eastern the ...

earned the nickname " foot cavalry" by traveling very quickly across the Blue Ridge Mountains, to the consternation of the Union leaders opposing them. To do this, Jackson used his detailed knowledge of the gaps in the Blue Ridge and directed his troops to march through the Blue Ridge Tunnel. Putnam 2011, p. 41.

Replacement

The Blue Ridge Railroad ceased to exist once the route across the mountains was completed, becoming a part of the Virginia Central Railroad. In 1868, the Virginia Central was merged with another state-chartered railroad, the Covington and Ohio Railroad, to create the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad (renamed

in 1878). This helped achieve Virginia's long-term goal of linking its navigable rivers of the Chesapeake Bay watershed with the

Ohio River The Ohio River () is a river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing in a southwesterly direction from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to its river mouth, mouth on the Mississippi Riv ...

. The C&O Railroad was subsequently sold to

Collis Potter Huntington Collis Potter Huntington (October 22, 1821 – August 13, 1900) was an American industrialist and railway magnate. He was one of the Big Four of western railroading (along with Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker) who invested ...

. The C&O replaced the Blue Ridge Tunnel in 1944 with a larger, parallel tunnel to accommodate the increased rail traffic of World War II. The new tunnel—which was off alignment when constructed—is now referred to as the Blue Ridge Tunnel. It is still in use by

CSX Transportation CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad company operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Operating about 21,000 route miles () of track, it is the lead ...

, the

Buckingham Branch Railroad Buckingham Branch Railroad is a Class III short-line railroad operating over 275 miles (443 km) of historic and strategic trackage in Central Virginia. Sharing overhead traffic with CSX and Amtrak, the company's headquarters are in Dill ...

and

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

Phased construction

After the original tunnel was replaced, it became known as the Crozet Tunnel in honor of its remarkable engineer, for whom the nearby town of Crozet is named. As of 2022, it was slated for use as part of a

rail trail A rail trail or railway walk is a shared-use path on a Right of way#Rail right of way, railway right of way. Rail trails are typically constructed after a railway has been abandoned and the track has been removed but may also share the rail corr ...

project. The Claudius Crozet Blue Ridge Tunnel Foundation secured a $749,000 grant through the Virginia Department of Transportation and the Commonwealth Transportation Board to begin Phase I of the project to reopen the long-closed tunnel with a bike path and hiking trail. Phase I will be a footpath from the former Afton rail depot to a concrete bulwark 700 feet into the tunnel. The first piece of the trail will begin and end on the east side of Afton Mountain. "This is definitely safe where we're going," district supervisor Allen Hale said in 2015. "But once you get to the tunnel and someone walks through here and gets all the way up, they're going to want to go in... The ultimate goal … is to have the tunnel open all the way through to the west side to the Blue Ridge Mountains and have a trail connection to U.S. Route 250 on the other side," Hale said... According to the ''News & Advance'' archives, the $450,000 required for Phase II has already been raised. Hale hopes to begin Phase II some time this year. The date for Phase III has yet to be set. The Crozet Tunnel is open to foot traffic. The “Rails-To-Trails” walking/pedal cycling path is not yet, as of April 2021, complete to the tunnel.

Present use

Mapping the tunnel

In the fall of 2017, a

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...

assistant professor and two graduate students used a ground-based

autonomous robot An autonomous robot is a robot that acts without recourse to human control. Historic examples include space probes. Modern examples include self-driving Robotic vacuum cleaner, vacuums and Self-driving car, cars. Industrial robot, Industrial robot ...

to scan and map the tunnel using

LiDAR Lidar (, also LIDAR, an acronym of "light detection and ranging" or "laser imaging, detection, and ranging") is a method for determining ranging, ranges by targeting an object or a surface with a laser and measuring the time for the reflected li ...

. The result was a three-dimensional map of the tunnel which can be used for restoration or construction projects in the future.

Reopening of the tunnel

On the 21st September 2020, the tunnel was opened with an access trail. A Nelson County Parks and Recreation press release announced the Claudius Crozet Blue Ridge Tunnel Trail system will open from sunrise to sunset. The project incorporates an access trail through the restored tunnel and new trailheads on both sides of the Blue Ridge with access for hikers, walkers, bicyclists, and others. Eventually, the project will link existing trails, a long-distance trail system, and the historic communities on both sides of the mountains. The tunnel is also near the convergence of Skyline Drive, the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Appalachian Trail, and U.S. Bicycle Route 76. On the eastern side, there is a 12-spot parking lot at 215 Afton Depot Lane, while the western trailhead is near 483 Three Notched Mountain Highway, where there are 25 parking spaces and two oversized areas for small buses. At this time, there are no plans to light the tunnel, so visitors are urged to bring headlamps and/or flashlights. A mini documentary about the reopening of the tunnel was released ont
Youtube
in March 2021. The tunnel was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 2023.

Footnotes

References

* * * * * * * Lyons, Mary E. The Blue Ridge Tunnel: a remarkable engineering feat in antebellum Virginia. .l. History Press, 2014. ; 1626194211. Notes: 191 pages: illustrations (some color), maps (some color). * Lyons, Mary E. 2013. "From Skibbereen to Staunton: Callaghans at the Blue Ridge Tunnel". Augusta Historical Bulletin. Volume 49 (2013), pages 61–72. Named Person: Callahan family.; Bridget Callaghan; Mary Callaghan O'Connell; Thomas Callaghan; Dennis Callaghan; John Callaghan; Michael Callaghan; Mary Ann Marmion. * * Turner, Kristina. 2011. "Forgotten Heroes: Clann Mhór: the Blue Ridge Railroad Project Honors 19th-Century Irish and Enslaved Laborers". Broadside: the Magazine of the Library of Virginia. (Spring 2011), p. 10-11. Notes: Includes photos. "The Clann Mhór project, based in Charlottesville and documented in ..

External links

Blue Ridge Tunnel -- from Rail to Trail
* * {{Authority control Buildings and structures in Augusta County, Virginia Railroad tunnels in Virginia CSX Transportation tunnels Chesapeake and Ohio Railway tunnels Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks Buildings and structures in Nelson County, Virginia Tunnels completed in 1858 Historic American Engineering Record in Virginia National Register of Historic Places in Nelson County, Virginia National Register of Historic Places in Augusta County, Virginia