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 nathan
 
Location: Richmond Virginia
Gender: Male
 |  |  |  | Richmond church hill tunnels
< on 8/17/2005 9:01 PM >
|  | | | I've been told there are tunnels under church hill. Not the old collapsed train line. No one can tell me exactly where an entrance is though. Anyone experienced with these?
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tick
 
Location: Abingdon, VA
Gender: Male
| | | | Re: Richmond church hill tunnels
<Reply # 1 on 8/19/2005 1:18 AM >
| | | | Interesting... what kind of tunnels are they supposed to be (steam, drain, sewer, brewery, etc...)?
edit: Oh yeah, welcome to UER! Do you live in Richmond?
[last edit 8/19/2005 2:34 AM by tick - edited 1 times]
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distorteddreams
Location: Richmond, VA
Gender: Male
Extra Caffeinated
| |  | | | Re: Richmond church hill tunnels
<Reply # 2 on 8/30/2005 8:12 PM >
| | | | Well, start out by getting a map and walking around trying to find them... markw here you walka nd look and you'll get a good idea of where they aren't at the very least. I've done this before... Works well 
Lemme know, I'd love to see them myself.
[ insert ambiguity here ] |
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memphis
Location: richmond, va
Gender: Male
Cave Clan, fo life.
| | | Re: Richmond church hill tunnels
<Reply # 3 on 9/14/2005 4:23 AM >
|  | | | I've actually heard this too. Of course you have the old walled up train tunnel in which the cave in occurred and those people died, supposedly the train is still in there... that would be a hell of a thing to find / explore. Rumor or fact? Not sure.
But I have heard tell of some older tunnels in Church hill, but I don't know for sure. I've been meaning to check it out.
I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion. |
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tick
Location: Abingdon, VA
Gender: Male
| | | | Re: Richmond church hill tunnels
<Reply # 4 on 9/14/2005 11:01 AM >
| | | | I apologize for the incredibly long post, but this is the finest piece of journalism ever to be published in the Times-Dispatch.
CRAWLING INTO THE BELLY OF A RICHMOND LEGEND
Richmond Times-Dispatch
July 5, 1998
Author: Mark Holmberg
The arched ceiling drips like a leaky dam. Cracks riddle the brickwork, which sags overhead like a clay guillotine as we crawl through the belly of one of Richmond's greatest legends, the Church Hill tunnel.
Despite the cool dampness, we're sweating a little.
Would we find any hint of the death train or of the bodies said to be buried beside it more than 3,000 feet away? Or would we join them, perhaps, in the city's deepest graveyard?
Kids play basketball 80 feet above us at the 30th Street park. But down here it's tomb-quiet, like when you're wearing headphones and the music stops.
We crawl on, hugging the fill that was supposed to keep the tunnel - and the ground above it - from collapsing. Clearly, it had settled, giving us our scant crawling room.
Years ago, during the great cave-in of 1925, more than 200 men had stampeded on the tunnel floor below us, running for their lives in the opposite direction.
"The lights went out, hell began to reign in the tunnel," carpenter George Raborg told the Richmond Times-Dispatch shortly after he escaped. "Some of them yelled that they had knives and would cut anybody that got in their way. Others were praying - you never heard such praying."
The men ran blindly, tripping over the rails and smashing into shoring timbers and each other, Raborg said.
"It was like being in a bottomless pit without knowing what had happened or what was going to happen."
Nearly 75 years after the great cave-in, the tunnel of misery remains alive, like a 4,000-foot snake writhing beneath the city.
A portion of Jefferson Park above the tunnel - near the buried train - gave way in 1962. A decade ago, the 16-foot-thick snake kinked its back below 29th Street, swallowed a tennis court and may have helped tip two houses. And earlier this year, an old brick pharmacy almost directly above the East Marshall Street portion of the tunnel was torn down after one of its walls fell into the street, although the city's building inspector doubts the tunnel had anything to do with it.
One of Richmond's most intriguing legends, the C&O railroad tunnel has been a nightmare since its bloody beginning about 125 years ago. It would consume more than a dozen men, one at a time, during construction, and would become such a nightmare for the C&O that officials practically cheered when it was closed.
Its final known meal, on Oct. 2, 1925, consisted of a work train, its conductor, fireman and at least one laborer.
Soon thereafter, the tunnel, with the train inside, reportedly was filled with sand and plugged at both ends.
The mankiller finally had been slain, it appeared.
"The train might not be seen for another geological epoch," wrote a Richmond News Leader editorial writer at the time, "when men of a new civilization discover a relic of the 20th century in what once was the blue marl of Church Hill."
But like everyone else, the editorial writer underestimated the power of the tunnel to lure people below the surface of Church Hill.
Someone has broken into the tunnel's eastern end, which is hidden in a wooded ravine below Sugar Bottom. People are risking their lives, belly-crawling inside the beast in a search for the train and the buried men, or perhaps for the gold rumored to be hidden there.
"There's a lot of history in that hole," Kenneth Minor said as he sat on the porch of his old frame home near the tunnel entrance. "They come about every weekend to look at that tunnel. They're really getting close to that thing down there."
There are old tires and junk in there as well as a damp graveyard smell, especially as you move farther from the entrance and approach the massive concrete wall that seals off the rest of the tunnel. Water gushes constantly from the base of the tombstone-like wall.
Someone spent long hours trying to chisel a chest-high hole in the wall but gave up after gouging a hole nearly a foot deep in the concrete.
Recently, Virginia Commonwealth University student David Brooks told me about a hole someone had poked into the top of that wall. He and other students had crawled in there. "I was terrified when I went in there," said Brooks, who only crawled in a few feet. "Very creepy."
What? The Church Hill tunnel open?
I needed help to check this out.
A search led to the home of Bill Biggers, a veteran caver who survived a cave-in and an unscheduled swim through a fast underground river.
"No," he said flatly when asked about a crawl under the city. "I don't go in anything manmade."
But when he found out it was the Church Hill tunnel, he felt the tug of the legend. A few days later, it pulled him in.
He had one stipulation: "The minute I say pull out, we pull out."
Times-Dispatch photographer P. Kevin Morley also felt the tug. He's had coal mine experience, not to mention a gut check in war-torn Zaire.
I've spent more than half my life as a bricklayer and figured I could evaluate the tunnel's masonry and keep us from being buried beneath it. Plus, I had researched the tunnel years earlier.
After studying maps and historical accounts from our newspaper archives and summaries from the Chesapeake & Ohio Historical Society, it became clear we had a remote chance of making it all the way to the train's closest flatcar, which was about 3,800 feet away from our entry point. Photographs at the time showed that the cave-in stopped at the last car. In fact, many of the men escaped the collapse by crawling under the flatcars.
At the least, we would be able to determine how solidly the tunnel was filled before it was closed off and just how dangerous the current conditions were, given the fact that people were going inside.
Thanks to Biggers, we had all the proper underground gear: hard hats and high-powered electric lights, as well as backup carbide lights and a couple of flashlights. We brought plenty of water, gorp and candy bars, in case we were able to go all the way to the flatcars, which might take all day and part of the night.
I carried a ladder down the hill and got it set up against the concrete wall. Biggers climbed up, shined his light inside, adjusted his gear and, without further ado, squirmed in.
"It's a belly crawl," he drawled as he slithered into the rocky passage just inches larger than his 56-year-old body.
"You make it look easy," Morley said as he wiggled in.
"Sorry" came the muffled reply.
The first 40 feet or so of the crawl was over heavy granite rocks stacked haphazardly almost to the ceiling. It was so tight we had to take off all of our gear and push it ahead of us.
"I'm on sand," Biggers announced from ahead. "There's more room. Hands and knees."
From reading the historical accounts, I'd expected the sand. I also half-expected methane gas, which stalled the rescue effort in 1925.
"Heavy, poisonous gases caused abandonment of other rescue work, which was started from the 31st Street end of the tunnel," The Richmond News Leader reported on Oct. 4, 1925, "and no one dared enter the gaping death chamber without gas masks and escorts."
We rested a few minutes on the sand, checking our breathing and getting a good look around.
The sand fill had settled equally, so it was round, like the tunnel, with a 2- to 3-foot gap between the fill and the domed ceiling. Biggers scooted down the slope and looked at the gap on the side of the tunnel. There was water down there, oily black and looking dangerous.
"You could probably slide down in there and get pinned, and the whole thing would slough off on top of you," he observed casually.
I fought down a shiver and wondered whether there were any missing college students buried down there.
We spent the first of many moments examining the bricks in the arched ceiling. There were plenty of cracks, but early on it looked OK.
We crawled on, roughly 150 feet, and came to a 50-foot-long section filled with railroad ties stacked nearly to the ceiling, like cribbing. Over the years, the ties had rotted and settled, and the space between the mealy wood and the ceiling grew to 5 feet in some places.
"Hey, cool! I can stand up," Morley said brightly.
"Be careful, please," I begged him, warning that the ties were rotten and might give way and send him into a watery tangle below.
Morley's a young guy, recently married, given to collecting Gumby toys and making fluegelhorn sounds through his nose. He's a nice, innocent guy, and my greatest fear was something happening to him, or to Bill, for that matter.
The ceiling-high stacks of railroad ties apparently were used sporadically like dams to help hold the sand in place as the laborers filled in the tunnel. Biggers noted that water at the sides of the tunnel was getting higher the deeper we crawled, indicating the tunnel ran downhill. (I later found a scaled side view of the tunnel, drawn by an engineer, that showed that the tunnel indeed sloped down from east to west. I had figured as much, since water seeps out from the very top of the wall that blocks the western portal.)
We reached another stretch of sand. Water was starting to drip from the ceiling, and the sand was wet. The brickwork still looked pretty sound. The masons had done a good job, and I admired the straight lines and even joints. The faces of a few of the softer, salmon-colored bricks had popped off, but that was to be expected.
"The elephant tracks go right through," Biggers said, referring to the knee and elbow prints left by previous explorers. "The thundering herd has been in here."
Stalactite formations began to appear, hanging from bricks. "When the 'mites go up, the 'tites go down," Biggers said, quoting the trick for remembering the difference between stalagmites and stalactites. "Some of these are a good 6 inches long."
The ceiling had sagged in the area just beyond the railroad ties. It was hard to notice it until we looked back for Morley, who had lagged behind to take pictures. All we could see was the reflection of his spotlight.
Portions of the ceiling had twisted and ripped. Ragged edges of snapped bricks stared down, defying gravity. There was next to nothing holding them up.
"I wonder if we shouldn't talk a little softer," I suggested. Biggers nodded.
A bit further in, the ceiling improved, and we waited for Morley to catch up.
"Wow! Look at the ceiling!" he almost shouted when he came past the twisted portion.
The shiver returned. As he caught up, I could feel the vibrations from his knees and elbows, and I suggested we all talk, and crawl, a little more softly.
"This is definitely a dangerous nuisance," Biggers said. "Somebody could get hurt."
Hurt? Anyone caught below the masonry would be crushed flat if it fell, since it was made of several layers and was more than a foot thick. And there's about 80 feet of wet earth on top of it.
I remember watching helplessly 15 years ago as a 20-foot-high block firewall blew over on top of two carpenters framing the second-floor walls for a West End condominium. It drove them through the wooden floor like nails before the whole mess fell in on top of them.
I crawled on ahead as Biggers helped Morley take some pictures of a stalactite. Off in the distance, it looked like the ceiling dipped again.
Water was dripping steadily now. It gurgled high on the sides of our sandy road, which was now pocked with puddles.
We weren't even 500 feet into the tunnel, roughly one-eighth of its length. The ceiling was twisted and cracked again, and I sensed we were entering the Twilight Zone.
Up ahead was a curtain of shattered brick and earth. This section had collapsed completely. (Later I would walk the path of the tunnel above ground, pacing it off, and find that this cave-in was the one that had destroyed the tennis court. Turns out, city workers used a dump truck to pour sand in the hole until it filled.)
"End of the line," I called out, looking at the tortured ceiling and wondering what it would feel like to be crushed to death. Again, I wondered if any students were buried under the rubble, or beyond it.
Our team didn't need to tarry under this section, my bricklayer's soul told me. Biggers said later that my voice rose an octave.
I helped hold the lights so Morley could get a picture as Biggers scouted the collapse to see if there was any possible way under it.
We all figured there was more open crawling space beyond that cave-in, but it was clearly suicide to try to dig through the rubble to get to it.
"Uh-oh," Morley said, struggling with a flash unit that wasn't going off.
"You never say 'uh-oh' in a cave," Biggers said, cursing as he crawled away from the collapse.
We re-examined the tunnel on our way out, and it was nice to notice that none of the previous explorers had defaced brickwork or left any evidence of their passing, beyond their knee, elbow and occasional footprints.
Neither did we.
"Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints, kill nothing but time," Biggers said, reciting the caver's motto as we crawled back.
Biggers told us a couple of caving stories during a snack break on the way back, and I couldn't help but notice how he blossomed underground, as if God put him on Earth to crawl beneath it.
He showed not the slightest hint of fear, or even unease, during our nearly two hours in the Church Hill tunnel.
But after we finally had squeezed our way back into the daylight, he said what I was thinking: "I don't want to do that again."
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Arch-Image
Location: DFW
Gender: Male
"This gene pool could use a little chlorine."
| | | Re: Richmond church hill tunnels
<Reply # 5 on 9/15/2005 3:12 AM >
| | | | excellent story!
"Your kid may be an honor student but YOU'RE still an IDIOT!" |
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memphis
Location: richmond, va
Gender: Male
Cave Clan, fo life.
| | | Re: Richmond church hill tunnels
<Reply # 6 on 9/24/2005 10:12 PM >
| | | | Thats amazing. It makes you wonder though, did the tunnel have an entrance and an exit? Or was it an ongoing tunneling process? There should be access from more than one side (they say it's under the corner of Chimbarazo park) and with all the urban sprawl we had, possibly one of the foundations or the maintence sewer system must come close to it. Not all of it can be under 80 feet of dirt, but I might be wrong.
Anyone been to it?
I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion. |
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mist929292
Location: Richmond, Virginia
Gender: Male
| | | Re: Richmond church hill tunnels
<Reply # 7 on 9/25/2005 1:28 AM >
| | | | I wasn't even aware people had gone back in.
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tick
Location: Abingdon, VA
Gender: Male
| | | | Re: Richmond church hill tunnels
<Reply # 8 on 9/25/2005 3:12 AM >
| | | | Last I heard, the Church Hill tunnel is completely sealed up at both ends now. After this article came out, CSX went and sealed up the hole that the reporter used to access the tunnel.
[last edit 9/25/2005 3:13 AM by tick - edited 1 times]
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memphis
Location: richmond, va
Gender: Male
Cave Clan, fo life.
| | | Re: Richmond church hill tunnels
<Reply # 9 on 9/25/2005 4:29 AM >
| | | | Tick, you are correct.
AREA/STATE
CSX CORP. CHECKS TUNNEL, BLOCKS ENTRY
145 words
5 July 1998
Richmond Times-Dispatch
City
A-10
English
Copyright (c) 1998 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved.
CSX Corp., which still owns the Church Hill tunnel, sent engineers to the tunnel's eastern portal immediately after The Times-Dispatch contacted the company about the hole in the wall sealing that end.
Access to the tunnel was blocked with a chain-link fence, and no-trespassing signs were added. CSX workers checked the tunnel and indicated it still was in good condition, said Rob Gould, CSX spokesman.
"We are in the process of securing a geological expert to independently check the integrity of the tunnel," Gould said Thursday. "We are doing all we can at this point.
"We sincerely appreciate you bringing this to our attention," Gould added. "Everything we do in the company is oriented around safety - not only for our employees, but for the public as well."
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As for completely inaccessible.. I don't know. I would suggest not checking it out despite my extreme desire to do so. With the Richmond Times Disgrace's (actually a good article for once) take on the tunnel, it would seem pointless to risk with no potential gain other than some rotting timbers and 6'' stalactites.
Another word, I have about 25 articles on this tunnel available through a database I have access to, maybe some of you have similar, but if you ever need some help researching, message me.
238.
I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion. |
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memphis
Location: richmond, va
Gender: Male
Cave Clan, fo life.
| | | Re: Richmond church hill tunnels
<Reply # 10 on 9/25/2005 4:32 AM >
| | | | However, these intrigue me, (from a seperate article, dated 1992)
A labyrinthine maze of passages winding underfoot includes other sites isuch as:
* brewery vaults once belonging to the Peter Stumpf Brewery Co. under Chimborazo Hill;
* a network of underground passages still in use connecting Virginia Commonwealth University's Medical College of Virginia and most buildings in Capitol Square, including the Governor's Mansion.
* a bookcase still standing in the Millhiser House at 916 W. Franklin St. on VCU's campus, said to have once hidden the entrance to a secret tunnel or catwalk allegedly leading to the house of the mistress of a former owner of Millhiser house.
* other tunnels along the river. While accounts vary, one archivist describes a "Tunnel of Romance" actually built to repair pipes under the Kanawha Canal. Young Richmonders discovered that the utility tunnel provided a short cut under Hollywood Cemetery to a popular dance pavilion. It is said that couples stopped in the tunnel en route to the pavilion. The tunnel was closed in the 1920s.
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Anyone been in, or know of any of these?
I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion. |
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tick
Location: Abingdon, VA
Gender: Male
| | | | Re: Richmond church hill tunnels
<Reply # 11 on 9/25/2005 5:28 AM >
| | | | Let me guess, Library of Virginia Newsbank? I have a copy of that last article ("Arcane Richmond") laying next to my desk right now
Another interesting article search is for "Locke Island". I forget the title of the article, but it mentions $8 million in gold coins hidden in a tunnel near Richmond. Hehe.
-The Stumpfs brewery tunnels under Chimborazo park are buried, I think it'd be impossible to get in.
-I've explored the Capitol Tunnels. I recommend against attempting it. Haven't been in the MCV tunnels though (there's a locked gate separating the two systems), but they look interesting. I ran across a master steam tunnel map for that part of the city - the MCV system is quite extensive!
-As far as the "other tunnels" go, I know that there used to be a secret tunnel connecting Pratt's Castle to either the river or the canal... I'll buy a case of beer for whoever finds that tunnel! (of course, it was probably destroyed along with the Castle, but I can dream) Don't know anything about the other utility tunnels mentioned though, but I'd love to find out more!
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mist929292
Location: Richmond, Virginia
Gender: Male
| | | Re: Richmond church hill tunnels
<Reply # 12 on 9/25/2005 5:50 AM >
| | | | -Some info on the Millhiser House. I'd like to check that out to see if the passage is locked or not.
"A small room in the southwest corner was a library. It is male-dominate, with built-in bookcases in wood darker than that used anywhere else. It features a secret passage, where one of the bookcases could swing back to allow the occupant of the library to exit under the stairs and avoid anyone in the public front hall."
http://www.vcu.edu/maps/historic/acmaph/h_milh/h_milh.htm
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tick
Location: Abingdon, VA
Gender: Male
| | | | Re: Richmond church hill tunnels
<Reply # 13 on 9/26/2005 11:06 AM >
| | | | Posted by twothirtyeight
Anyone been to it?
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I have, now.
The eastern entrance goes 100 or so yards into Church hill before it's walled up. The water is waist deep in places. You can see the sealed-up hole that the reporter used to enter the rest of the tunnel. There's still railroad ties and tracks under the water, and a lot of trash. If I go back, it'll be with a raft.
I forgot to photograph the western entrance, but it's just a concrete plug at the tunnel portal.
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memphis
Location: richmond, va
Gender: Male
Cave Clan, fo life.
| | | Re: Richmond church hill tunnels
<Reply # 14 on 9/29/2005 2:04 AM >
| | | | Posted by tick
Let me guess, Library of Virginia Newsbank? I have a copy of that last article ("Arcane Richmond") laying next to my desk right now
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Actually, I have internet access to about 13 or 14 databases, both government and public, but I doubt it's anything you couldn't get at the library.
-------
Anyone up for looking / checking out some of these steam tunnels, i'm game.
Of course i'd love to see that master steam tunnel map, duh, but I doubt you're gonna share that
Random checked out the Church Hill tunnel a couple days ago, so I saw some photos from him as well. Kind of makes me want to take my pick-axe down there and finish the hole in the wall. CSX said the tunnel was in "good condition" when they walled it up... but then where's the train at down there?
I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion. |
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tick
Location: Abingdon, VA
Gender: Male
| | | | Re: Richmond church hill tunnels
<Reply # 15 on 9/30/2005 12:30 AM >
| | | | Nah, I unfortunately I don't have that master steam tunnel map - I found it while doing some research, but wasn't allowed to keep a copy (for obvious reasons).
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hchinaski
| | Re: Richmond church hill tunnels
<Reply # 16 on 10/7/2005 9:50 PM >
| | | | i used to work @MCV in the summertimes and found access to those same steam tunnels. the one entrance that was odd to find was from a hidden closet in the VAcapitol building. looks like a coatroom or something on the 1st floor, but takes u right down to the tunnels.
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tick
Location: Abingdon, VA
Gender: Male
| | | | Re: Richmond church hill tunnels
<Reply # 17 on 10/7/2005 11:32 PM >
| | | | How's security in the MCV tunnels? Cameras? Motion detectors?
I know the entrance you're talking about, I think they keep it locked now. On a related note, the Capitol tunnels can supposedly be seen in the movies Dave (1993), Major Payne (1995), and First Kid (1996). Can anyone verify this? I haven't seen any of those films, and they look like they probably suck so I'm not going to rent them.
edit: Oh yeah, welcome hchinaski!
[last edit 10/8/2005 12:11 AM by tick - edited 1 times]
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hchinaski
| | Re: Richmond church hill tunnels
<Reply # 18 on 10/21/2005 12:29 AM >
| | | | it's been a long time since i worked @the MCV and one of the buildings that had a tunnel entrance has been torn down and rebuilt into a parking garage, so i don't know if it's still there. from what i remember there wasn't any security of any sort for the tunnels, but now who knows. not a whole lot of people knew of their existence to be honest.
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