Besides being skilled blasters, the Irish workers installed bricks in the elliptical shape of the tunnel to support the western portal entrance, where the rock is as soft as sandstone. Crozet used a bellows system powered by horses to pump air in to the workers, and a siphon to drain water from the tunnel. They worked in two shifts seven days a week, opening 26 feet of tunnel per month. Undertaken a decade before the invention of dynamite, Irish workers and slaves-who had been rented to the project by their owners-dug and blasted through solid Catoctin green granite with only hand drills and black powder.
The Claudius Crozet Blue Ridge Tunnel restoration project will provide a 2 ½ mile hike from the eastern trailhead in Nelson County, through the 4360’ tunnel, to the end of the western trail in Augusta County.Ĭrozet began work on the tunnel in 1849, when he was 60 years old. The Blue Ridge Tunnel recreational area lies at a major crossroads, where the Shenandoah National Park/Skyline Drive meets the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was replaced in 1944 by a larger, parallel tunnel that could accommodate larger trains.
The Blue Ridge tunnel, located at the intersection of Albemarle, Augusta, and Nelson Counties, was in use for 85 years. Only one of these tunnels, the Little Rock, is still in use.
#Blue ridge tunnel trail series
Until then it is closed to the public.Ĭlaudius Crozet, principal engineer and surveyor for the Virginia Board of Public Works in the 19 th century, surveyed the best route for the Virginia Central Railroad to cross the Blue Ridge Mountains-fulfilling Virginia’s long-term goal of linking the navigable rivers of the Chesapeake Bay watershed with the Ohio River and points west-as a series of four tunnels under Rockfish Gap to span the 17-mile section from Mechums River to Waynesboro. Phase III of the restoration project is now underway, and the Tunnel Foundation hopes to open it to the public by the end of 2020. The eastern portal of the Blue Ridge Tunnel after Phase I. Dombrowe is a retired IT director who serves on the boards of the Blue Ridge Tunnel Foundation, the Crozet Trails Crew, and the International Motor Sports Association. Nolde retired in 2019 after 20 years as a Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) engineer for the Staunton District. Phase III of the long-awaited tunnel restoration project is now underway.Īt its January 9 meeting, the Crozet Community Association (CCA) was treated to a fascinating presentation on the history and restoration of the Blue Ridge Tunnel by Wayne Nolde and Bob Dombrowe of the Claudius Crozet Blue Ridge Tunnel Foundation. The entire trip from the beginning of one trail to the end of the other will be approximately 2½ miles in length, with a 54-foot grade rise from east to west within the tunnel. Photo: īy the end of 2020, hikers, bikers, and history buffs will have a new recreational destination in central Virginia: visiting the Claudius Crozet Blue Ridge Tunnel, which runs through Afton Mountain under Rockfish Gap, via either the eastern portal in Nelson County or the western portal in Augusta County.
This view through the tunnel from the west to the east portals shows the literal light at the end of the tunnel, visible for the first time since the 1950s after the removal of the two bulkheads during Phase II.
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