Great Bend Railroad Tunnel

Useful Information

Location:	State Highway 3, Talcott, WV 24981. (37.6492321, -80.7670216)
Open:	no restrictions. [2024]
Fee:	free. [2024]
Classification:	Tunnel
Light:	bring torch
Dimension:
Guided tours:	self guided
Photography:	allowed
Accessibility:	yes
Bibliography:	Thomas W. Dixon Jr. (1985): Chesapeake & Ohio Alleghany Subdivision Alderson: C&O Historical Society, 1985. Ron Lane (2012): Great Bend Tunnel, e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia. 13 February 2012. online
Address:	Great Bend Railroad Tunnel, Hinton, WV 25951, Tel: +1-304-466-7113.
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

1870	begin of construction of the tunnel.
31-MAY-1872	breathrough.
FEB-1873	tunnel completed and operational.
1893	lining in brickwork completed.
1902	ventilation shafts sealed and steam powered ventilation system installed.
1917	West Portal redone in concrete and second ventilation system installed.
1932	Big Bend Tunnel added due to increasing traffic.
1950s	steam locomotives replaced by diesel and ventilation system removed.
1974	old tunnel decommissioned.

Description

The Great Bend Railroad Tunnel is the most spectacular tunnel on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, because it is 1.6 km long, the longest on the line. But somehow the name is a misnomer, as it crosses Big Bend Mountain. The railway was built between 1868 and 1870, the tunnel was built between 1870 and 1873. It was quite difficult to build the tunnel because the hard, faulted shale resisted drilling and blasting. When the shale was exposed to air, it became brittle and crumbled. Rockfalls killed workers and mules, the biggest collapse at the east end was estimated at 22 million pounds of rock. But finally they broke through and almost a year later the tunnel was operational.

However, there were further problems after its completion, the wooden lining was not sufficient and there were frequent rockfalls. A massive fall caused the death of a full team of train personnel, and so they finally started in the 1880s to replace the wooden lining by a brick lining. The tunnel was walled up on both sides with a barrel vault on top. This work took almost 10 years and was completed in 1893. The next problem was the ventilation, due to the length of the tunnel. From the beginning there were two ventilation shafts, 600 m from each portal. The basic idea was that those shafts would cause natural ventilation by convection, but unfortunately this did not work. The number of trains increased, at the turn of the century it was crossed by 45 steam trains daily. And so the shafts were sealed in 1902 and replaced by ventilation fans, which were powered by a steam engine at the eastern portal. When the west portal was redone in concrete in 1917 a ventilation plant was added here too. The ventilation system was removed in the 1950s, after the steam locomotives had been replaced by diesel locomotives.

The hill is named Big Bend, the tunnel is named Great Bend Tunnel, which seems to be a misnomer. In 1932 a second tunnel was built because of increasing traffic, it seems the single lane track was extended to a double lane track. This new tunnel was actually called Big Bend Tunnel, just to make the weirdness complete. The old tunnel was decommissioned in 1974, today only the newer tunnel is still in operation. The area around the old tunnel portal is now a small park and the tunnel is actually open. There is a low fence which allows a good view into the tunnel. It seems the tunnel is now full of water and entering requires gum boots. However, it seems actually entering the tunnel is discouraged.

But there is something else, right in front, which is quite interesting. A bronze monument shows a very muscular black man. This is John Henry, a railroad worker, about whom a famous urban legend is told.

Jobs on the railroad were labor-intensive and low paying, required long hours, and were at times dangerous. In New River Gorge hundreds of men worked on the railroad, the two major groups were freed African-American slaves and Irish Catholic immigrants. The work was human-powered, using only hand tools and explosives to carve through the mountains. In other words, an important job was to drill the holes for the explosives by hand. Long steel rods were hammered into the rock, the so-called steel driver swung a nine pound hammer and used steel bits of different lengths and sizes for different types of holes. They worked in two-man teams with a shaker, who held the stell bit and after each swing he was "shaking" the bit and repositioned it for the next swing.

But this time was starting the automation of many processes which were formerly done by hand, and now they were done by steam powered machinery. This was more efficient, cheaper, and less error-prone. It was quite logical from the view of the company to replace this hard drilling work by a new steam powered drilling machine. And a proof of concept was also logical, they staged a contest between a steel driving team and a steam powered drilling machines. However, the workers took this development not lightly, As today they feared the loss of their job as a result of the automation.

The Legend of John Henry
John Henry was hired as a steel driver for the railroad. When the railroad company brought in a steam drill to speed up work on the tunnel, they said that it could drill faster than any man, the challenge was “man against machine.” John Henry was known as the strongest, the fastest, and the most powerful steel driver working on the railroad. He went up against the steam drill to prove that the black worker could drill a hole through the rock farther and faster than the drill could. Using two 10-pound hammers, one in each hand, he pounded the drill so fast and so hard that he drilled a 14-foot hole into the rock, while the drill was only able to drill nine feet and then broke down. John Henry beat the steam drill and then died of exhaustion.

This is a legend, and a famous poem or the popular folk song "The Ballad of John Henry". It is unclear if this John Henry actually existed, he was the representative of a certain group of workers. Its also unclear where it happened, most versions of the legend do not give a location, though a few name the Great Bend Tunnel. The dead of John Henry was most likely not due to exhaustion, it's far more likely he died in a rockfall, an explosion, or of silicosis, the miners disease caused by the dust in the air.