Great Bend Tunnel

by Susan Rissi Tregoning

Title

Great Bend Tunnel

Artist

Susan Rissi Tregoning

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Photograph - Photography

Description

A view into the endless darkness of the iconic Great Bend Tunnel at John Henry Historical Park in Talcott, West Virginia.

In the early 1870s, the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway (C&O) embarked on one of its most significant projects - the creation of the Great Bend Tunnel. Their plan was to run a direct route through southern West Virginia by carving out a 6,500-foot tunnel through Big Bend Mountain instead of laying an eight-mile track around it.

The tunnel construction faced numerous challenges due to the mountain's hard and faulted shale, which resisted drilling and blasting efforts. Upon exposure to air, this shale would turn brittle and crumble, causing fatal rockfalls that claimed many lives of workers and mules alike. One particular collapse near the tunnel's eastern end resulted in over 22 million pounds of rock dropping. Despite these setbacks, by May 31, 1872, crews broke through to the other end of the mountain, and later that year, the first trains passed through the tunnel. It took until February 1873 for the Great Bend Tunnel to be fully completed.

Initially lined with timber, the tunnel continued experiencing rockfalls. One such incident led to an entire train crew's death due to a massive fall. This prompted C&O to switch lining material from timber to brick, which required more than six million bricks laid over a decade.

In 1931, C&O constructed a second 6,152-foot tunnel parallel to the original. The railroad ran double tracks through the mountain until 1974, when they transitioned back to the single track and discontinued using the original Great Bend Tunnel.

Copyright 2023 Susan Rissi Tregoning

Uploaded

December 26th, 2023

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