Industrial History: 1895 Baltimore Howard Street Tunnel

(Archived Bridge Hunter; HAER; Baltimore Terminal Subdivision; Satellite: North Portal, South Portal)

Technically, the tunnel was owned by the seven mile Baltimore Belt Railroad that was chartered in 1888. But evidently the Baltimore Belt was owned by B&O. Construction began in 1890 and on May 1, 1895 the first passenger train passed through it. [HAER]

Before the tunnel was built, B&O used ferries between Locust Poiont and Canton. [borhs, p1]

Photo from HAER MD,4-BALT,130--1 from md0909
1. VIEW OF NORTH PORTAL LOOKING OUT FROM UNDER MT. ROYAL STATION TRAIN SHED. - Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, Howard Street Tunnel, 1300 Mount Royal Avenue, Baltimore, Independent City, MD

Photo from HAER MD,4-BALT,130--4 from md0909
4. VIEW OF TRACKS LEADING TO SOUTH PORTAL AT CAMDEN STATION. - Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, Howard Street Tunnel, 1300 Mount Royal Avenue, Baltimore, Independent City, MD

Power for locomotives moving trains through the tunnel was provided by electricity—a novel idea in the 1890s, as electricity was then only beginning to be used by railroads. The General Electric Company designed electric locomotives especially for the Howard Street Tunnel, and an electric power station was built in the Camden Station yards to power them. The electricity that provided the illumination for the tunnel was another innovative achievement. [HAER-data]

In fact, "B&O was the first railroad in the US to operate an electric locomotive to pull trains through a tunnel." The electric line was 3.5 miles (5.6km) long. [borhs, p3]

NRHS, please click for a history of the tunnel

I added the yellow line over the red line because after I studied the Mount Royal Station, I learned the North Portal was south of the trainshed. But I still don't understand why I can't see tracks on the north and south sides of the trainshed. What I thought was the north portal was really the north side of a short tunnel under Mount Royal Avenue.

Satellite

I've known about this tunnel for a long time because it is too small to accommodate double-stack trains. Just when funding was coming together to enlarge it, Hunter Harrison acquired control of CSX and pulled CSX out of a $135m funding commitment in 2017. In the meantime, the Port of Baltimore has been expanded to accommodate the bigger ships that can exploit the bigger Panama Canal that was opened in 2016. But truck access to the port has reached capacity because of those bigger ships. Some truckers have had to wait eight hours to gain access. Why Hunter would not want to take the significant amount of taxpayer money that was being offered to allow CSX to get more business was a puzzle for me. After Harrison died, CSX recommitted to the project, but with less money. [BaltimoreSun-FedGrant, WashingtonPost]

Not only does this tunnel need to be enlarged by 18", the clearances for 22 bridges between Baltimore and Philadelphia also needs to be increased. The cost to improve the 1.7 mile tunnel and 22 bridges is estimated as $470m. [Another source has $466m.] CSX as agreed to pay $91m and Maryland has put up $147m. They wanted the feds to pay the rest. The estimated cost was originally 1-3 billion dollars! But CSX engineers came up with a cheaper plan. The savings is because they have decided to lower the tunnel floor instead of elevate the ceiling in some stretches, notch the ceiling and use steel ties. The steel ties have a lower profile than wood ties. The project is expected to take 4-5 years. [TTnews] Unfortunately, the federal grant announced in July 2019 was for just $125m leaving over a $100m gap. [BaltimoreSun-FedGrant] "Gov. Larry Hogan, who called the project Maryland’s 'most significant economic development accomplishment,' is preparing to negotiate with the Jacksonville, Fla.-based railroad and other unnamed stakeholders over how to cover the shortfall." [WashingtonPost]

As of Nov 25, 2019, the port authority has the missing $103m of funding, but they won't divulge the source of that funding, "saying only the department has 'identified a variety of state, private, and federal formula sources to close the funding gap.'” So after seven years of pursing funding, they now have it. [joc]

CSX derailed 60 cars in 2001 causing a fire in the tunnel. On Apr 30, 2014, a water main broke, which caused a sinkhole, and filled the tunnel with water and silt.

The Port of Baltimore is the largest Roll-On-Roll-Off (RORO) port on the east coast. When I accessed a satellite image, they must have unloaded, or plan to load, a ship carrying truck chassis.

Satellite

I'm very disappointed that no one is talking about autorack cars going through the tunnel. Is the plan to leave all of this vehicle import/export on the roads? Then it occurred to me that Philadelphia is not that far away. The rule for intermodal is that the destination needs to be over 500 miles away to pay. I read that a little over 100,000 containers a year are expected to shift from truck to rail after the tunnel and bridges are improved. The port handles about a million containers a year. The port handles about half that number of cars and light trucks. [bizjournal]

The more I look into double stacks vs. autoracks, the more confused I get. The container ship terminal is here. They have dredged one berth to 50' to accept 14,000 TEU ships. They just got federal funding to create a second 14,000 TEU berth.

William VanZee, Dec 2019

I added a purple line to this CSX clearance map to mark where the Howard Tunnel is. And I put a purple rectangle around the container terminal. Howard Tunnel is not between the container terminal and Philadelphia!

CSX Clearance Maps

For completeness, there is the map for autoracks.

CSX Clearance Maps

Update: I think the RORO terminal is south of the Middle Branch. Autroracks from here to Philadelphia would use the Howard Tunnel.

Satellite

Zooming in, autoracks are loaded at this terminal.

Satellite

safe_image for Expansion of Baltimore’s Howard Street Tunnel a step closer to reality
"Project costs are estimated at $466 million, which will consist of $202.5 million from Maryland, $125 million from a federal government grant under the Infrastructure for Rebuilding America program, $113 million from CSX, $22.5 million from Pennsylvania and $3 million in federal highway formula funding....Officials say the port ranks first among U.S. ports for volumes of autos and light trucks, roll-on/roll-off heavy farm and construction machinery, and imported gypsum. It is 11th among major U.S. ports for foreign cargo handled and 10th for total foreign cargo value."
The port has completed dredging a second 50'-deep berth.

One of five photos posted by Nathan Aaron, Photojournalist

PHOTOS: Larry Hogan, CSX CEO Jim Foote, and other leaders break ground on the new Howard Street Tunnel Project. The tunnel will be expanded in size to allow double-stacked container trains to pass through to and from the Port of Baltimore. The project is expected to wrap in late ‘24 - early ‘25.

Mikenzie Frost
WBFF FOX 45

Nathan Aaron shared
Jim Kelling: The Mount Royal station train shed is fantastic!

safe_image for Howard Street Tunnel Expansion Project Launches
$466m for Howard Tunnel reconstruction and 21 other locations between Baltimore and Philadelphia
Steven Gilroy: I'm surprised they set up the podium right on the tracks- it counteracts all of their publicity imagery about railroad safety.
Michael Schwiebert: It’ll be interesting to see how much success the Port of Baltimore has in soliciting container traffic with this. While this makes double stacks possible, The Port of Baltimore still has the disadvantage compared to Tidewater Virginia, of being farther up Chesapeake Bay. In any event, this will help with CSX’s east coast intermodal business.
Joseph Hoehler: Michael I'd imagine CSX can sweep up some UPS traffic from NS too.
NS is basically landlocked when it comes to being able to doublestack due to the NEC and there's no way to avoid it
"With its deep container berths and supersized cranes, including four new mega cranes that arrived in September, the Port of Baltimore is among only a few East Coast ports that can accommodate some of the largest container ships in the world."

Bill Rettberg Jr. posted six photos with the comment: "Something a little different today. The lengthening of the Howard Street tunnel under downtown Baltimore. This was done to accommodate the construction of I 395 off of I95, into downtown. Kind of sums up the slow demise of railroad infrastructure in urban areas."