The St. Clair Tunnel is the name for two separate rail tunnels which were built under the

St. Clair River The St. Clair River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed November 7, 2011 river in central North America which flows from Lake Huron into Lake St. Clair, forming part ...

between

Sarnia Sarnia is a city in Lambton County, Ontario, Canada. It had a Canada 2021 Census, 2021 population of 72,047, and is the largest city on Lake Huron. Sarnia is located on the eastern bank of the junction between the Upper and Lower Great Lakes, ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

and

Port Huron, Michigan Port Huron is a city in and seat of government of St. Clair County, Michigan, United States. The population was 28,983 at the 2020 census. The city is bordered on the west by Port Huron Township, but the two are administered autonomously. Po ...

. The original, opened in 1891 and used until it was replaced by a new larger tunnel in 1994, was the first full-size subaqueous tunnel built in North America. (By full-size it is meant that it allowed a railroad to run through it.) It is a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a National Register of Historic Places property types, building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the Federal government of the United States, United States government f ...

of the United States, and has been designated a civil engineering landmark by both US and Canadian engineering bodies.

First tunnel (1891–1995)

The first underwater rail tunnel in North America was opened by the St. Clair Tunnel Company in 1891. The company was a subsidiary of the

Grand Trunk Railway The Grand Trunk Railway (; ) was a Rail transport, railway system that operated in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario and in the List of states and territories of the United States, American sta ...

(GTR), which used the new route to connect with its subsidiary Chicago and Grand Trunk Railway, predecessor to the

Grand Trunk Western Railroad The Grand Trunk Western Railroad Company was an American subsidiary of the Grand Trunk Railway, later of the Canadian National Railway operating in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Since a corporate restructuring in 1971, the railroad ha ...

(GTW). Before the tunnel's construction, Grand Trunk was forced to use time-consuming rail ferries to transfer cargo. The tunnel was an engineering marvel in its day and designed by Joseph Hobson. The development of original techniques were achieved for excavating in a

compressed air Compressed air is air kept under a pressure that is greater than atmospheric pressure. Compressed air in vehicle tires and shock absorbers are commonly used for improved traction and reduced vibration. Compressed air is an important medium for t ...

environment. The Beach

tunnelling shield A tunnelling shield is a protective structure used during the excavation of large, human-made tunnels. When excavating through ground that is soft, liquid, or otherwise unstable, there is a potential health and safety hazard to workers and the pr ...

, designed by Alfred Ely Beach, was used to assist workmen in removing material from the route of the tunnel and left a continuous iron tube nearly long. Freight trains used the tunnel initially with the first passenger trains using it in 1892. The tunnel measured from portal to portal. The actual width of the St. Clair River at this crossing is only . The tube had a diameter of and hosted a single

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the ...

track. It was built at a cost of $2.7 million (equivalent to $ in ).

Locomotives

Steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, Fuel oil, oil or, rarely, Wood fuel, wood) to heat ...

s were used in the early years to pull trains through the tunnel, however concerns about the potential dangers of suffocation should a train stall in the tunnel led to the installation of

catenary In physics and geometry, a catenary ( , ) is the curve that an idealized hanging chain or wire rope, cable assumes under its own weight when supported only at its ends in a uniform gravitational field. The catenary curve has a U-like shape, ...

wires for electric-powered locomotives by 1907. The first use of

electric locomotive An electric locomotive is a locomotive powered by electricity from overhead lines, a third rail or on-board energy storage such as a Battery (electricity), battery or a supercapacitor. Locomotives with on-board fuelled prime mover (locomotive), ...

s through the tunnel in regular service occurred on May 17, 1908. The locomotives were built by Baldwin-Westinghouse. A total of six electric locomotives were supplied by 1909. Each were equipped with three 240 horse power single phase motors and weighed 65 tons. They had a rigid wheel base and operated on a 3,300-volt, 25 cycle, single phase current. They had a maximum draw bar pull of 40,000 pounds, and a running draw bar pull of at . According to a 1909 publication, it was standard practice to use two units together to pull a 1,000 ton train up the 2% grade. The entire length of the electric line was and the trains were able to have a running speed of to . The Grand Trunk Railway used the locomotives to transfer both passenger and freight trains through the tunnel. In 1923, the GTR was

nationalized Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization contrasts with priv ...

by Canada's federal government, which then merged the bankrupt railway into the recently formed

Canadian National Railway The Canadian National Railway Company () is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN is Canada's largest railway, in terms of both revenue a ...

. CN also assumed control of Grand Trunk Western as a subsidiary and the tunnel company and continued operations much as before. The electric-powered locomotives were retired in 1958 and scrapped in 1959 after CN withdrew its last steam locomotives on trains passing through the tunnel. New

diesel locomotive A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover (locomotive), power source is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is con ...

s did not cause the same problems with

air quality Air pollution is the presence of substances in the Atmosphere of Earth, air that are harmful to humans, other living beings or the environment. Pollutants can be Gas, gases like Ground-level ozone, ozone or nitrogen oxides or small particles li ...

in this relatively short tunnel.

Freight cars

After the

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, railways in North America started to see the dimensions of

freight cars A railroad car, railcar (American English, American and Canadian English), railway wagon, railway carriage, railway truck, railwagon, railcarriage or railtruck (British English and International Union of Railways, UIC), also called a tra ...

increase. Canadian National (identified as CN after 1960) was forced to rely upon rail ferries to carry freight cars, such as hicube boxcars, automobile carriers, certain intermodal cars and chemical tankers, which exceeded the limits of the tunnel's dimensions.

Recognition

The tunnel was designated a Civil Engineering Landmark by both the

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

and the American Societies of Civil Engineers in 1991. The tunnel was declared a U.S.

in 1993. (includes diagrams) and The construction of the tunnel has also been recognized as National Historic Event by

Parks Canada Parks Canada ()Parks Canada is the applied title under the Federal Identity Program; the legal title is Parks Canada Agency (). is the agency of the Government of Canada which manages the country's 37 National Parks, three National Marine Co ...

since 1992, with a plaque at the site.

Second tunnel (1995–present)

The second tunnel was built to handle intermodal rail cars with double-stacked

shipping container A shipping container is a container with strength suitable to withstand shipment, storage, and handling. Shipping containers range from large reusable steel boxes used for intermodal shipments to the ubiquitous corrugated box design, corrugated b ...

s, which could not fit through the original tunnel or the

Michigan Central Railway Tunnel The Michigan Central Railway Tunnel is a railroad tunnel under the Detroit River connecting Detroit, Michigan, in the United States with Windsor, Ontario, in Canada. The U.S. entrance is south of Porter and Vermont streets near Rosa Parks Bouleva ...

in Detroit. By the early 1990s, CN had commissioned engineering studies for a replacement tunnel to be built adjacent to the existing St. Clair River tunnel. In 1992, new CN president Paul Tellier foresaw that CN would increase its traffic in the

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

–

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

corridor. The Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement was implemented in 1989 and discussions for a

North American Free Trade Agreement The North American Free Trade Agreement (, TLCAN; , ALÉNA), referred to colloquially in the Anglosphere as NAFTA, ( ) was an agreement signed by Canada, Mexico, and the United States that created a trilateral trade bloc in North America. The ...

between Canada, the United States and Mexico discussions were underway at that time (NAFTA was implemented in 1994). It was anticipated that import/export traffic on CN's corridor would increase dramatically as a result. In 1993, CN began construction of the newer and larger tunnel. Tellier declared at the ceremonies:

hetunnel will give CN the efficiencies it needs to become a strong competitive force in North American transportation

Unlike the first tunnel, which was hand dug from both ends, the new tunnel was constructed using a

tunnel boring machine A tunnel boring machine (TBM), also known as a "mole" or a "worm", is a machine used to excavate tunnels. TBMs are an alternative to drilling and blasting methods and "hand mining", allowing more rapid excavation through hard rock, wet or dry so ...

named ''Excalibore''. It started on the Canadian side and dug its way to the U.S. The tunnel opened in late 1994 whereupon trains stopped using the adjacent original tunnel, whose bore was sealed. The new tunnel was dedicated on May 5, 1995. It measures from portal to portal with a bore diameter of . It has a single standard gauge track that can accommodate all freight cars currently in service in North America; for this reason, the rail ferries were also retired in 1994 when the new tunnel opened. On November 30, 2004, CN announced that the new St. Clair River tunnel would be named the Paul M. Tellier Tunnel in honour of the company's retired president, Paul Tellier, who foresaw the impact the tunnel would have on CN's eastern freight corridor. Signs bearing his name were installed over each tunnel portal.

Incident

On June 28, 2019, train CN M38331 28, hauling 100+ cars, had 40 cars derail in the tunnel, spilling of

sulfuric acid Sulfuric acid (American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphuric acid (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth spelling), known in antiquity as oil of vitriol, is a mineral acid composed of the elements sulfur, oxygen, ...

and closing the tunnel for several days afterwards. The tunnel re-opened on July 10, 2019. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada revealed that a modified

gondola The gondola (, ; , ) is a traditional, flat-bottomed Venetian rowing boat, well suited to the conditions of the Venetian lagoon. It is typically propelled by a gondolier, who uses a rowing oar, which is not fastened to the hull, in a scul ...

partial failure caused the car's trucks to become askew and a derailment.

Proposed projects

*Tunnel doubling in order to track doubling completion from South Bend via Port Huron and Sarnia to London. the new tunnel would be at the north of the current tunnel or the south of the current tunnel; the latter option would require the old tunnel to be filled with concrete. *Electrification at 25kV AC catenaries for CN Flint Line (South Bend–St. Clair Tunnel–London), NS Chicago Line and BNSF Northern Transcon.

References

Sources

* *

External links

Historic American Engineering Record Heritage Documentation Programs (HDP) is a division of the U.S. National Park Service (NPS). It administers three programs established to document historic places in the United States: Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), Historic American E ...

(HAER) documentation: ** ** **
1890-07-26: THE SIMS - EDISON ELECTRIC TORPEDO - THE TORPEDO AT FULL SPEED - SECTIONAL VIEW OF THE TORPEDO
* at MichMarkers.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Clair Tunnel Railway tunnels in Ontario Railroad tunnels in Michigan St. Clair River Canada–United States border crossings Buildings and structures in Sarnia Buildings and structures in St. Clair County, Michigan Port Huron, Michigan Rail infrastructure in Sarnia Transportation in St. Clair County, Michigan Canadian National Railway tunnels Grand Trunk Railway Tunnels completed in 1891 Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks National Historic Landmarks in Michigan National Register of Historic Places in St. Clair County, Michigan Railroad-related National Historic Landmarks Railway buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Michigan Railway tunnels on the National Register of Historic Places 1891 establishments in Michigan 1891 establishments in Ontario Historic American Engineering Record in Michigan Tunnels completed in 1994 1994 establishments in Ontario 1994 establishments in Michigan Michigan State Historic Sites in St. Clair County