Rail Heritage Lecture: The Church Hill Tunnel Disaster

Built in the early 1870s by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, the Church Hill Tunnel extended 4,000 feet under the Church Hill district of Richmond, Virginia. Its purpose was to connect a terminus in downtown Richmond’s Shockoe Bottom to their new Peninsula Subdivision that transported coal to Newport News. Unlike the C&O's western tunnels that were carved through bedrock, the Church Hill tunnel passed through Richmond's clay soil, which changed with rainfall and groundwater, causing deadly cave-ins during construction and periodic trouble thereafter.

On October 2, 1925, the tunnel collapsed on a work train, killing four men and trapping a 4-4-0 steam locomotive and 10 flat cars. Nearly 200 workmen and the badly scalded fireman managed to crawl under the flat cars and escape. During the next week, the community anxiously watched rescue efforts to save the engineer and other laborers who remained trapped.

This rail heritage program is cosponsored by the Lee Hall Train Station Foundation and Newport News Historic Services. It will be presented by William Grimes, foundation board member and career locomotive engineer for the Fort Eustis Military Railroad.

You may also like the following events from Newport News Historic Sites:

• Next Saturday, 20th September, 09:00 am, The People's Revolution in Yorktown
• Next Sunday, 21st September, 09:00 am, The People's Revolution in Yorktown