The Gallitzin Tunnels in

Gallitzin, Pennsylvania Gallitzin is a borough in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is bordered by Gallitzin Township and Tunnelhill, all of which sit astride the Eastern continental divide. Tunnel Hill and Gallitzin both are pierced by railroad tunn ...

, are a set of three adjacent tunnels through the

Allegheny Mountains The Allegheny Mountain Range ( ) — also spelled Alleghany or Allegany, less formally the Alleghenies — is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the Eastern United States and Canada. Historically it represented a significant barr ...

in western Pennsylvania. They were completed in 1854, 1855, and 1902 by the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad ( reporting mark PRR), legal name as the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, also known as the "Pennsy," was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At its ...

as part of the cross-state route that includes the nearby

Horseshoe Curve A horseshoe curve is a class of climbing curve in a roadbed that reverses turn direction (inflection) twice on either side of a single tight curve that varies through an angle of about 180 degrees or more. Such curves are more commonly found ...

to the east. Their ownership has since passed to

Penn Central The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals, the Pennsylvania, New York Central and the ...

Transportation Company, then to

Conrail Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busine ...

, and most recently to the

Norfolk Southern Railway The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company was formed in 1982 with the merger of the Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. The comp ...

. The tunnels are currently used by Norfolk Southern freight trains and Amtrak ''Pennsylvanian'' passenger trains. The namesake Gallitzin Tunnel is out of service.

History

Construction

The first tunnel, which is the middle of the three bores through the mountain, was built by the Pennsylvania Railroad from 1851 to 1854. Originally named Summit Tunnel, it is long at an elevation of above

mean sea level A mean is a quantity representing the "center" of a collection of numbers and is intermediate to the extreme values of the set of numbers. There are several kinds of means (or "measures of central tendency") in mathematics, especially in statist ...

and is known today as the Allegheny Tunnel. The second tunnel, the southernmost of the bores, was constructed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from 1852 to 1855 as part of the

New Portage Railroad The New Portage Branch was a rail line which ran between the New Portage Tunnel and Duncansville, Pennsylvania. History The line was opened between 1852 and 1856 by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as a bypass of a portion of their Allegheny Porta ...

(NPRR). In 1857, the Pennsylvania Railroad bought the New Portage Railroad from the Commonwealth, and appropriated the "Allegheny" name for its "Summit" tunnel. The PRR took the New Portage Tunnel out of service shortly thereafter. In the 1890s, it was expanded to two tracks and used as the primary route for eastbound traffic. The third tunnel, the Gallitzin Tunnel, was begun in 1902 and opened in 1904 immediately to the north of the Allegheny Tunnel.

Later history

In the early 1990s, Conrail (with money from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania) enlarged the Allegheny and New Portage Tunnels to accommodate double-stack container on flatcar (COFC) trains. Work was done on the tunnels sequentially, starting with the Portage Tunnel followed by the Allegheny Tunnel. The Portage Tunnel was opened for eastbound traffic in 1993. The Allegheny Tunnel was enlarged from its original 1854 cross-section to contain two tracks that could be used for

double-stack rail transport Double-stack rail transport is a form of intermodal freight transport in which railroad cars carry two layers of intermodal containers. Invented in the United States in 1984, it is now being used for nearly seventy percent of United States inte ...

in either direction. The work was completed in September 1995, and the Gallitzin Tunnel (which was not enlarged) was taken out of service. Amtrak's

Pennsylvanian Pennsylvanian may refer to: * A person or thing from Pennsylvania * Pennsylvanian (geology) The Pennsylvanian ( , also known as Upper Carboniferous or Late Carboniferous) is, on the International Commission on Stratigraphy, ICS geologic timesc ...

trains travel through the tunnel.

Gallitzin Tunnels Park & Museum

Near the closed tunnel sits the Gallitzin Tunnels Park & Museum, which has a restored 1942 Pennsylvania caboose whose interior is visible to visitors. The museum, which sits across the street, has exhibits about the area's railroad, industrial, social, and religious heritage; a gift shop, and a theater. The museum building also houses borough offices, a police station, a library, and an archival room.

References

External links