Abandoned RR Tunnels in NYS

kinlock wrote:Troy, New York

The tracks crossed Hill St at Washington St and went into a tunnel under 5Th Ave, behind what was called The Market, a large paved open lot with a 20 ft brick wall on the 5th Ave side.

Trains stopped coming through in 1959. The tracks were rolled up in the mid 60s and parts of the right of way sold to the adjoining property owners for $1 to extend their back yards (and make sure the RR could never get the ROW back).

Tracks in Troy were owned by Troy Union Railroad (in turn owned by NY Central, D&H and B&M)

Is there anything at all visible from this tunnel today? Maybe one end of it? Thanks, Mike

I've pulled together every mention of every tunnel (except the BR&P one which is an active road underneath an abandoned railroad -- but there are a LOT of tunnels underneath abandoned railroads):

O&W
Northfield
Fallsburg
High View
Hawk Mountain (west end destroyed, east end buried)
LVRR
Short tunnel under the NYS Thruway on Rochester Branch (arguably a bridge)
Tunnel under one of the Buffalo airport runways on the Niagara Falls Branch (converted to automotive traffic?)
DL&W
Tunnel to coal dock at Oswego
Willis Avenue to West Shore bridges under NYC (very long run of plate girder bridges now dismantled)
RW&O (NYC)
Tunnel in downtown Oswego
Rochester Subway
Tunnel Court Street to Brown Street
U&D
Kingston under Delaware Ave
NYC
under NYS 92 west of Cazenovia ( 42.945 -75.887 )
St. Mary's Park in the Bronx
New Hamburg http://www.rutlandtrail.org/mapview.cgi ... =2&dot=Yes" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Boston and Albany
Under Tunnel Hill Road (42.390 -73.467)
Little Falls under NY-5 for the Dolgeville branch
Troy Union Railroad (in turn owned by NY Central, D&H and B&M)
5th Ave behind The Market (destroyed)
LIRR
Atlantic Avenue Tunnel
Park Avenue Tunnel (30th to 42nd St) now a road tunnel
Bay Ridge branch East New York
Ogdensburg, Clayton & Rome
Pixley Falls tunnel (both ends buried, never had tracks laid)
Dunderberg Spiral Railway
One hard rock tunnel half completed
Base level tunnel mostly completed
Several other cut-and-cover tunnels in varying stages of completion
Niagara Falls
Likely the NYC Lewiston Branch just south of Lewiston
MTA
Various abandoned lines
Catskill Mountain Railway
Catskill Marina
D&H
Port Henry under Tunnel Avenue
NYNH&H
Hospital Branch near Marist

scottychaos wrote:and a mile or so east (RR west) of that was the Auburn branch tunnel under the Erie..very short tunnel under the 2-track Erie main. Tunnel is bricked in, but the archway is still visable.

Where is this?

RussNelson wrote:

scottychaos wrote:and a mile or so east (RR west) of that was the Auburn branch tunnel under the Erie..very short tunnel under the 2-track Erie main. Tunnel is bricked in, but the archway is still visable.

Where is this?

N 42.02961 W 76.47048 . About a mile SW of Barton, about 100 ft or so RR west (on the Erie) of the creek under the Erie. Can't make out anything special in terms of a bricked up portal, etc, using Bing birdseye view, but that doesn't mean much.
The strange thing is, if you look at old photos on http://www.historicaerials.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; , the 1968 photo sure looks like the LV went OVER the Erie. Hard to believe, given how high the Erie RoW seems to be today. But the Erie was there first, IIRC. One of the experts here will know...
Jim S

One more for the list:
Abandoned RR tunnel under an active RR:
NYOW Capouse branch under the (still active) DLW main, on the north side of Scranton.
Here is a streetview image from the Southbound offramp from Rte 11 for the N. Keyser Ave Exit:
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.4448216 ... 56!6m1!1e1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
And Bing: http://binged.it/20Eah3c" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I believe I read the other side is either filled in or covered up with fill, but not sure. It was in service right up to the end of the O&W for transfer freight to from LV Coxton Yd to O&W Mayfield yard, and then on to Maybrook for the Poughkeepsie bridge.
Jim S

Yes the LV tunneled under the Erie near Barton.

One more addition was the NYC tunnel under the Erie canal on the east side of Syracuse.

Where is the closest accessable abandoned tunnel near Albany?

When the Southern Tier Expressway was constructed a steel culvert-type tunnel was installed for the Lehigh Valley Railroad Auburn branch. Several feet of fill covered this tunnel which passed under the expressway at an angle. Never bothered to photograph it prior to moving west in 1978. On my first vacation back to NYS during the fall of 1980 plans were made to photograph the now abandoned tunnel. Arriving at the location it was soon discovered that the tunnel had been removed. Anyone have photos of this work or know the date when the removal was accomplished? Must have been quite a project.

NRGeep wrote:Where is the closest accessable abandoned tunnel near Albany?

It's in Canaan Center, underneath Tunnel Hill Road. There are two bores. One is still active, carrying CSX's Berkshire Subdivision. The other one is empty. Going there unofficially is easy enough, just park on the west side, walk down, and cross the active tracks. Totally trespassing, of course. Going there officially is probably still possible. You would have to "elicit the cooperation" of various people, including the farmer who owns the road going down to the private crossing to the east, as well as CSX, who would provide a protection detail. By "elicit the cooperation" I mean of course spending money.

pumpers wrote:The strange thing is, if you look at old photos on http://www.historicaerials.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; , the 1968 photo sure looks like the LV went OVER the Erie. Hard to believe, given how high the Erie RoW seems to be today. But the Erie was there first, IIRC. One of the experts here will know...
Jim S

The USGS topo map indicates that the LV went underneath.

RSD15 wrote:Yes the LV tunneled under the Erie near Barton.

One more addition was the NYC tunnel under the Erie canal on the east side of Syracuse.

Indeed! I forgot about that one. I wonder how many railroads tunneled underneath canals?? Probably very few!

http://goo.gl/2kPgn4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; is missing a few, and includes a few things you could argue are bridges over a railroad rather than a railroad tunneling through something. But it shows you exactly where they are.

A few notes.

East New York tunnel has 4 trackways. The middle two have tracks (one used to get to bay ridge, the other for car storage). The other trackways are used for a driving path and a pipeline, respectively. They are interconnected along the length of the tunnel (through little notches in the walls), so I wouldn't say it is truly 'abandoned'. Some photos and (somewhat dark) history of it here: http://ltvsquad.com/2015/10/19/east-new ... ht-tunnel/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Going back to 2006:

RailMike wrote:Does the East New York tunnel of the LIRR Bay Ridge branch have separate passageways for each of the formerly-4 tracks? If so, then add the three unused tunnels there.

On the west side of Manhattan, there is/was a nightclub called "The Underground" that was apparently located in an old railroad tunnel.

Don't forget the isolated sections of the 2nd Ave. MTA Subway line, though that might not remain abandoned for long.

The nightclub I'm assuming was 'The Tunnel' - it was inside a street level building that at one point had tracks running through 'a tunnel' down the middle of the building. This building still stands today, and the 'tunnel' in it is a publicly accessible walkway. Lots about it here:
http://ltvsquad.com/2014/02/06/terminal-cold-storage/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

There are a few NYC subway tunnel segments that are abandoned. Probably better covered in a thread specifically about them (too many to list really - though most are small and obscure). The longest is the harlem second ave section (110 to 120 streets). It's supposed to be connected in the next 10 years to the 'stubway' 63-96th street second ave subway, though this project is not funded at the moment largely due to the mayor and governor playing politics while commuters suffer.

Ironically the other second ave subway tunnel built in the 70s - down in chinatown - may never be used.

There is the abandoned 'underjump' tunnel at white pot junction on the LIRR, though it's pretty small. It connected the rockaway beach branch to the mainline in rego park.

There might be an abandoned tunnel in Flushing (Queens) that was part of the Central RR of LI:
http://arrts-arrchives.com/flushtocrd1.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I past this intersection maybe 3 years ago specifically looking for any sign of the tunnel. There is a NYC DEP facility on top of the lot where art's 1978 photos were taken. I suspect the tunnel might still be under the street and in use by the DEP for something (perhaps pumping a large drain tunnel that roughly follows the CRRofLI ROW through the neighborhood).

Depending on one's definition of 'tunnel', some of the bunkers at Fort Tilden on rockaway could also be on the list. There was a military RR connecting the larger 'harris' gun placements there. The track is still embedded in the ground through those bunkers.

RussNelson wrote:

pumpers wrote:The strange thing is, if you look at old photos on http://www.historicaerials.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; , the 1968 photo sure looks like the LV went OVER the Erie. Hard to believe, given how high the Erie RoW seems to be today. But the Erie was there first, IIRC. One of the experts here will know...
Jim S

The USGS topo map indicates that the LV went underneath.

Russ, Yes, and RSD15 posted that as well. But look at the 1968 photo I mentioned and see if you can figure out why it looks the way it does. Almost like someone took a black pen and traced out the LV ROW, right over the Erie... Jim S
I can imagine the LV having a pole line that didn't go thru the tunnel but rather up and over the Erie, but that wouldn't show up on the picture.

pumpers wrote:

RussNelson wrote:

pumpers wrote:The strange thing is, if you look at old photos on http://www.historicaerials.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; , the 1968 photo sure looks like the LV went OVER the Erie. Hard to believe, given how high the Erie RoW seems to be today. But the Erie was there first, IIRC. One of the experts here will know...
Jim S

The USGS topo map indicates that the LV went underneath.

Russ, Yes, and RSD15 posted that as well. But look at the 1968 photo I mentioned and see if you can figure out why it looks the way it does. Almost like someone took a black pen and traced out the LV ROW, right over the Erie... Jim S

I see what you mean. If you look to the south, though, it definitely has a shadow on the left side of the Erie, and the right side of the LV, indicating that the Erie is up on a fill and the LV going through a cut. Maybe the Erie bridge is a truss, and it's shadow makes the bridge look dark?