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Cowboy
    
location:
Nashville, TN
Gender: Male
 |  |  | old tunnel in the hills
< on 1/30/2010 5:33 PM >
|  | | | in the 1860s back when there were still horse drawn carriages the way around the berkeley hills took about 3 hours to get to Orinda. if you went around it all the way up to Martinez may take you half a day. there for in the 1870s the oakland and contra costa tunnel company built the kennedy toll road and dug out 100 feet of dirt was dug out of the contra costa side and 200 feet were dug out of the oakland side until the company ran out of money. for the next 20 years people had to go either up to richmond and around or take the long journey over the berkeley hills. in this time the oakland merchants exchange started to loose money to the port of s.f. or the port of Martinez due to the easy railroad access at both those points. the idea of a tunnel was revived in the 1890s by both counties and private investors. it was opened in 1903 but people called the tunnel different things. some people called it the kennedy toll road and some called it the old broadway tunnel. since its abandonment in 1927 it has been called the old broadway tunnel. at that time when it closed the portals were sealed off for public safety. when i went there you can tell where the tunnel used to be and on the west side there's a plack saying what it was and when it was. on the east side the sealed portal is in side an east bay regional park employee services entrance but there's no room to turn around at the end of the road so you have to drive in a bit but you can see where the tunnel was up to the left. if you know the bay area at all and if your in oakland drive up skyline drive and about half way up there will be a pull off with a tree and a flag poll in the middle and thats right where it is.
[last edit 1/30/2010 10:31 PM by Cowboy - edited 2 times]
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bo2krocketman
location:
Berkeley, Ca
Gender: Male
5104lyfe!
| |  |  |  | Re: old tunnel in the hills
<Reply # 1 on 1/30/2010 7:03 PM >
| | | | I was there with max13 when he went to this location. If you live or spend time in the hills, you've driven directly past the tunnel entrance. Once we found the Oakland-side entrance, we climbed farther up into the hill, before we found piles of HUGE planed beams (similar to what you see in old R/R's, mines, and the era of buildings where they could afford to fall and plane a 100' old growth tree  ), and some sort of steam pump. From our location, it was easy to see where the tunnel had caved in, and it's path through the hills.
On the other side (the Orinda/Moraga side), the entrance is located within a rangers house, or a caltrans corporation yard, we're not quite sure, but it's somewhere over there.
My photos, but bigger, with a nice browser for them: http://www.flickr....tos/bo2krocketman/ |
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big dave
    
location:
SoCal
Gender: Male
| | | Re: old tunnel in the hills
<Reply # 2 on 1/30/2010 9:18 PM >
| | | | I like stuff like this. Is camping allowed in the area? I would love to spend a day with a metal detector, if the law allows.
An armed society, is a polite society. So lets get to it! |
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Cowboy
location:
Nashville, TN
Gender: Male
| | | Re: old tunnel in the hills
<Reply # 3 on 1/30/2010 10:35 PM >
| | | | Posted by big dave
I like stuff like this. Is camping allowed in the area? I would love to spend a day with a metal detector, if the law allows.
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its called Tilden regional park. There is camping in the area during the summer and it used to be a military base during World War 2 so there's plenty of stuff to explore
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yota94
location:
AEQUITS.VERITAS. CALI.
Gender: Male
| | Re: old tunnel in the hills
<Reply # 4 on 1/30/2010 11:59 PM >
| | | | huh...good history thanks...i gotta go check this out
UER might as well be crack...
oh and Thats TOYOTA...dick. |
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hooper
location:
Los Angeles, California
Gender: Male
| | Re: old tunnel in the hills
<Reply # 5 on 1/31/2010 12:24 AM >
| | | | I lived in San Francisco for twenty years and never knew a thing about this. Awesome!
It's always night somewhere |
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DrRJones
location:
Hayward Ca
Gender: Male
I am become death
| | | Re: old tunnel in the hills
<Reply # 6 on 1/31/2010 7:14 PM >
| | | | The east bay has all sorts of hidden history u just have to be willing to spend some time looking. Like all the bootlegging tunnels under hayward and oakland and san leandro. Woot
I wish i was underground, that's where the love is. |
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sabrepilot9000
| | Re: old tunnel in the hills
<Reply # 7 on 2/9/2010 6:37 PM >
| | | | It's amazing how stuff like this just kind of gets lost in time. Too bad there aren't more places like this around here. So basically the only way into what is left of this is through a regional park building? BTW, what is that in picture 2? I wanna say it looks like a trolly but I dont wanna sound too dumb  .
"Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity." - General George S. Patton |
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Cowboy
location:
Nashville, TN
Gender: Male
| | | Re: old tunnel in the hills
<Reply # 8 on 2/9/2010 11:49 PM >
| | | | From what me and bo2krocket man could tell it looks like an old steam pump of some sort. there's pistons in it so we were thinking some sort or ventilation
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TunnelRat24
| | Re: old tunnel in the hills
<Reply # 10 on 10/22/2010 11:55 PM >
| | | | Posted by DrRJones
The east bay has all sorts of hidden history u just have to be willing to spend some time looking. Like all the bootlegging tunnels under hayward and oakland and san leandro. Woot
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Tunnels under Hayward?
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Downhilleo
location:
Concord, ca
Gender: Male
Mines, railroads, history, maps, bicycles and old buildings-oh my.
| | Re: old tunnel in the hills
<Reply # 11 on 10/23/2010 3:33 PM >
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about 10 miles to the south is the old Antioch & Eastern (Later Sacramento Northern) train tunnel. On the east side of the hills is the eastern entrance on Pinehurst road and Shepard canyon on the west side. They were building houses on the west side in the 90's and opened the comcrete seal allowing us access. We went about 100 yards in and it was flooded, came back with rafts and went another 100 yards or so and it was caved. It seems like such a waste of a resource.
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