Black Rock Tunnel

[USS ALASKA]

http://hspa-pa.org/Picture_gallery/New Photos August 2010/HSPA - Train Black Rock Tunnel.jpg

https://historicbridges.org/pennsyl...lbridgerr/little_blackrocktunnelbridge021.jpg

The Black Rock Tunnel was opened in 1838 for the Reading Railroad. Delivering Anthracite coal to the Philly area to include the Phoenix Iron Works which it runs next to. Phoenix Iron Works was the first company to generate steam with Anthracite in 1825. The Works was a major cannon foundry and iron producer during the ACW and user of the Reading and Pennsylvania Railroads

The tunnel is still active as part of Norfolk Southern. Depending upon the source, it was the second or third rail tunnel in the US and the oldest active tunnel still in use by a railroad. It was the first in the US were shafts were used during construction. Construction began in 1835. The engineer in charge was W. Hasell Wilson from Charleston, SC. It was widened in 1859, 1914, 1994.

Paleontologist and miner Charles Wheatley discovered unknown fossils in the rock removed from the tunnel, some of which bear his name.

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[USS ALASKA]

Attached is the LOC's Historic American Engineering Record of the Black Rock Tunnel.

(The Historic American Engineering Record program was founded on January 10, 1969, by NPS and the American Society of Civil Engineers. HAER documents historic mechanical and engineering artifacts. Since the advent of HAER, the combined program is typically called "HABS/HAER". Today much of the work of HABS/HAER is done by student teams during the summer, or as part of college-credit classwork.)
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[ErnieMac]

The lead engineer for the project was named Moncure Robinson. Robinson started his career in Virginia designing, among other projects the bridge that carried the Richmond and Petersburg Railroad across the James River. That bridge is the uppermost of the three shown in the following photo. Another photo shows its ruins after being burned by retreating Confederates in April, 1865.

 

[DaveBrt]

Moncure Robinson had moved to Philadelphia by the time of the War. His son, James M. Robinson, was Superintendent, then President of the Seaboard & Roanoke RR. During the War, he was made a Captain in the CSA, Engineer Bureau. He spent part of the war on the Virginia & Tennessee RR, then was sent to England to buy supplies for the Engineer Bureau (with the side job of buying supplies for five Virginia RRs), then returned to the Virginia & Tennessee RR. By the end of the war, he was controlling trains from Wilmington to Richmond, under the RR Bureau. He remained in slow communication with his father through English friends; the letters are at the William & Mary U. Library.

See his CW bio at:
http://csa-railroads.com/Essays/Biography_of_John_M._Robinson.htm

 

[kevikens]

And every inch of that tunnel was bored out with nothing more than black powder, hammer and bit, and the blood and sweat of Irish navvies. I used to climb upon that ridge and take rail fan images just after the Reading became a part of Conrail.. It was originally double tracked through the tunnel until a few decades ago. The roof was too low for the stack trains NS wanted to run through them and digging out a new roof was too difficult so they dug out a lower road bed to make room for the double stacks.

 

[RebelWeber]

I always thought it was called Flat Rock Tunnel

The Flat Rock Tunnel is an active railroad tunnel located on Norfolk Southern's Harrisburg Line near Manayunk, Pennsylvania, United States. The tunnel was built by the Reading Railroad for its line along the Schuylkill River. Construction of the tunnel started in 1836 and it opened in 1840. Wikipedia


I walked thru it on more the one occasion in my youth


oops never mind I got them confused !!!

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Whoa, thank you! One more to add to the story of anthracite and the war. Two of my kids went to school within sight of the first anthracite mine in the U.S., we're extremely close to Schuylkill county. Asked a question once here on barges at White House Landing, you folks gave me the deep history on coal dug out of here and where it went.

Boy is there a lot of history on the tracks of the Reading RR. The Mollies who dug and died for coal, waves of immigrants working the mines to load those trains- who marched off to war. Schuylkill county sent so many to first call up, they had to send some back. Grgrgrandfather, 50th PVI, was a one armed fireman on these runs post war.

Please please please don't side track to fossils? Never get anything done today. Everything is interesting.

Sorry- you can't go around using words like ' coal ' and Reading RR and not expect to hear a little too much from the pits. Cool stuff, thanks!

 

[Seduzal]

An amazing part of railroad history found. Thanks for sharing.

 

[AnnaLee]

Thank you for the interesting RR posting.

 

[USS ALASKA]

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. "Black Rock Tunnel, near Phoenixville." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e0-9f8d-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e0-9f8d-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
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