Hoosac Tunnel in Western Massachusetts

West Portal: (Satellite)
Central Shaft: (Satellite)
East Portal: (Satellite)
Web Site
The route is currently owned by Guilford Transportation.

I recognize the name Hoosac as a significant tunnel in western Massachusetts. It was significant because it was one of the first and longest (4.74 miles) tunnels built in the USA. I've ignored it until now because it is out of my preferred territory of the Midwest.

Satellite

But it is in the news so I'm digging deeper. (pun intended) The person who took the photo in this post has asked for the photo to be deleted because he is afraid he will get in trouble. It is a shame that our corporations have become so crazy about trying to hide simple truths. But I'll honor the request and not copy the photo. The photo shows a rock slide from about halfway up the right side of the tunnel. The slope of the slide is about 2:1 and crosses the entire bottom of the tunnel. The photo shows that there is now just one track in the tunnel.
Chris Andrejczyk It was once double tracked,right? Seems too narrow.
Kathy Bray-Coggeshall No. Very small.
Frank Clement added five photos to show that the tunnel used to be double track. Of course, freight cars were a lot shorter and lower in the 1800s.

1

2

3

4

5
I took this panoramic view of the tunnel in 2009

Satellite

Dave Blaze Rail Photography posted

East Portal

Another frame of this scene from when I was visiting the tunnel week after week. Now that it's been a couple months I'm kinda starting to miss it!

This is a different frame just as the train emerged from the void and it has a model railroad-esque quality I kind of like.

After driving out here five weeks in a row I finally got train 16R (Norfolk Southern East Binghamton yard to Pan Am Ayer yard) at the east portal of Hoosac Tunnel at about MP 415.7 on Pan Am's modern day Freight Main. And as it turned out this wasn't even the best shot of the say. To see the real surprise and read the story of this day check out this shot: https://flic.kr/p/2m2jYpW

Florida, Massachusetts

Friday May 28, 2021

Mike Howey: WOW,water looks pretty close to the track!
Randall Hampton shared

Another Dave Blaze photo of the east portal with an more pronounced reflection in the water

Steve Nichols posted this along with the worker's photo that I'm not copying.
Reports are coming in that the Hoosac Tunnel has a collapse on the west end. Traffic is being rerouted via the Vermont Railway.

The tunnel is also significant because it took a long time to construct it, 1851-75, with a cost of 195 lives giving it the nickname of "The Bloody Pit." [AtlasObscura, storyland-death] About 30 more lives were lost since its completion. [HoosacTunnel-home] When you do a Google search you notice several people are trying to claim the tunnel as haunted.

In 1841 a self made paper mill owner from Fitchburg MA by the name of Alvah Crocker, in response to a the more southern "Western Railroad" being opened, began lobbying for the creation of a more northern route which would favor his mills. He as well as others argued that the Western Railroad which traveled through Worcester and on to Springfield left the more northern towns out in the cold. Not to mention that the Western Railroad had to negotiate some very difficult grades and curvatures. [HoosacTunne-history]

I see multiple completion dates because a project this big had multiple milestones. The headings met in 1873, the first trains ran in 1875, it was declared complete July 1, 1876, and the east facade was finished in 1877. I'm using the milestone of trains running as the completion date. It was electrified between 1911 and 1946. Double track was installed in 1885. (1881 according to HoosacTunnel-history.) The second track was removed in 1957, and the remaining track was centered in 1973. The height was increased for triple stack cars in 1997. Continuous welded rail was installed in 2005. [HoosacTunnel-statistics] ("In 1973 the track was centered and replaced by continuous welded rail." [HossacTunnel-history]) The last 16 feet of rock were blasted out of the way in 1874 making it the second longest tunnel in the world. The cost was $17 million in 1870s dollars. This reference puts the construction deaths at 196. "It was the longest tunnel in North America until 1916 when it was beaten by the Moffat Tunnel in the Rockies. It never did manage to achieve the status of being the longest tunnel in the world. Mt Cenis in the Swiss Alps which opened a few years earlier and was 8.5 miles in length." [HoosacTunnel-history]

The individuals charged with building the tunnel were open to new ideas, and were quick to embrace novel tunneling methods. Between 1851 (when construction commenced) and 1865, the drills were hand-powered, and the explosive used for blasting was “ordinary black powder.” But the builders were happy to adopt “machine drills, driven by compressed air” as soon as they became available. At about the same time, “experiments were being made with nitroglycerine,” and that innovation, too, was adopted. [libraries.mit.edu]

In fact, they were too willing to innovate. In photos 2-4 above of the photos provided by Frank Clement, notice the "hole" on the left of the portal. That hole indicates it is the East Portal and the hole was made by a tunnelling machine in 1852. It goes 25' into the mountain, and it is now known as the "False Start." The reference implies that they went to England to locate tougher steel and used a better machine for the new bore. [storyland-east-portal] The reference HoosacTunnel-history says the bore was 12' before it seized up, and it was left in the test bore. Both references agree that the "False Start" was really just a testing area and that the current bore was the intended portal. The machine was not like todays TBM. It used explosives after the machine made a cut in the rock. The actual bore was started with star drills and black powder.

storyland-east-portal, North Adams Public Library

It is a good thing they started on the east side to test the boring machine because the west side turned out to be a tunneling nightmare. In addition to incompetent rock, they encountered lots of water. They had to use timber supports and a brick lining with 6-8 layers to hold up the mountain. [storyland-west-portal] Two shafts were sunk on the west side to provide more headings to work the "demoralized rock."

A Central Shaft was sunk to provide two more headings. It was a source of some of the construction deaths. The first Nitroglycerin factory for construction was running by Dec 31, 1867. It was also a contributor to the deaths. There is a reason why Nobel's invention of dynamite, a stabilization of Nitroglycerin, was so significant.

North Adams Public Library via storyland 1819 timeline event
HOOSAC TUNNEL PROPOSED
The Hoosac Tunnel was initially proposed as an underground canal. The Berkshire Mountains added a considerable problem as far as being in the way of such a canal - and therefore, a tunnel was eventually proposed. It was determined that the tunnel needed to be made in order for the railroad to be accessible to Boston and to the West.

Update:

The Bizarre and The Curious posted

The Hoosac Tunnel, a railroad tunnel beneath the Berkshire Mountains in Western Massachusetts, is said to be one of the most haunted places in New England. It was an engineering marvel of its age, completed in 1875, and nearly five miles in length. Yet, it would cost 195 lives in various fires, explosions, and tunnel collapses, hence earning its name among the crew at the Bloody Pit. It has since been the scene of hauntings, and even murder.

[There are over 2000 comments. There is no way I'm going to check them out!]

Paul Charpentier shared

Richard Schiller It was just [late May, 2020] reopened after it became flooded by a undergound stream that broke thourgh on the west side.

Sawyer Curtin commented on Paul's post
Cool spot to check out. The east portal has the railroad worker memorial.

 

Dave Blaze Rail Photography posted

Here's a bonus repost from nearly 5 years ago back when something other than SD60Es led the Norfolk Southern run thru trains.  Pennsylvania Railroad heritage ES44AC 8102 is on the point of 15R emerging from the 4.75 mile long Hoosac Tunnel.

Florida, Massachusetts 

Friday March 15, 2019

(new window) The part that got cut off at the end is about a different tunnel.

jkrails has info on the tunnel. Unfortunately, I could not figure out how you are supposed to navigate through his story from the introduction page.


(new window)



(new window)  If you wait a while, you will see that they are fixing the bad spot by digging down from above.

NS via alerts

NS via alerts

This is the photo that someone wanted deleted. I guess the genie is out of the bottle.

safe_image for Partially collapsed Hoosac Tunnel was an 1800s engineering featThe article has a video about the tunnel's history as well as the accident.

jkrails has info on the tunnel. Unfortunately, I could not figure out how you are supposed to navigate through his story from the introduction page.

Feb 28, 2020 Update: "the line is expected to remain out of service until at least mid-March" [rtands]

The tunnel opened in April 2020. [Tim Lawrence comment on a post]

Jul 2020 Trains Mag, p12, said it opened after a 52-day shutdown. They used steel arches, steel plates, and shotcrete to fix it. "You can count lengthy tunnel outages on  one hand. Hoosac Tunnel was closed for similar repairs in 1972. UP's Tunnel 11 on its route through the Cascades in Oregon was shut for more than three weeks after a 2018 colapse. In 2009, Mullan Tunnel on Montana Rail Link was out of service for 25 days due to a rock slide."

Hoosac Tunnel Videos: 11:11 Part ,  11:40 Part 2, 10:42 Part 3, 12:48 Part 4 (hole through), 14:17 Part 5