Just south of the Lynchburg station there is either a short tunnel or the tracks go through an underpass with a car road on top. Which is it? Tunnel or underpass.
Lynchburg, VA
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From google maps the tracks are in a trench and the two roads and trees across the tracks are not a bridge. So it’s a tunnel.
I would think they just used a culver type tunnel for the trains to past and spread dirt on it to for appearance and due to the width of the two roads needed. Save a very expensive wide bridge at that spot. Also with the greens it hides the tracks quite nicely.
I would think they just used a culver type tunnel for the trains to past and spread dirt on it to for appearance and due to the width of the two roads needed. Save a very expensive wide bridge at that spot. Also with the greens it hides the tracks quite nicely.
I would call it a tunnel as well and riding through it it feels like a short tunnel. I was wondering where it was on the Crescent route and knew it was near the Lynchburg station but did not realize it was that close. From the tracks while I was riding I was not aware a road was all around like that that can be seen from Google Earth. Riding that way in a few months and will be sure to be more in tune. But I am calling it a tunnel as well.
Yes, it feels tunnel like when on the train and I had no idea there Is a road above until I looked on Googlle Earth.
With the roads as they are it is a bit longer than an underpass of a bridge and all the trees add a bit more. But you do not see all that from the train windows.
With the roads as they are it is a bit longer than an underpass of a bridge and all the trees add a bit more. But you do not see all that from the train windows.
fdaley
OBS Chief
I would call it a tunnel too. If you're headed north, you go through it just before the station. And then a few minutes later, you go through a second tunnel at Riverside Park, after which you almost immediately go onto the high trestle over the James River.
JamesWhitcombRiley
Lead Service Attendant
It's called the Park Avenue Tunnel, built by the Southern in 1932. The tunnel was lowered for double stacks in 1995 (G. R. Harper photos).
Lburg is the Hill City. Adjoining the station was an industrial area, and it has good documentation (click "Nomination Form"). Interesting. One mill was three city blocks. Mill towns in Virginia were known for having good football teams, but Lynchburg was larger. It currently has about the same metro population as fast-growing Charlottesville. Lynchburg these days is not making clothes, but makes some very large things of several different types, which end up oversized on the highway. The city fought hard for that highway to be an interstate, but I-64 was routed north over a much higher pass, then shelved into the side of the Blue Ridge to avoid horse farms and/or inflate the contract. The speed limits on Lynchburg's US-29 have gone up to interstate speed in some stretches going to North Carolina.
I came across another kind of industry there. Adjacent to a Mennonite store, a younger member was running an aquaculture operation.
The Civil War gets a lot of attention from amateur historians, and this article mentions the city's Quaker heritage*, and perhaps its echo in lukewarm support for the Confederacy. By the 1920s much less of that kind of thinking remained, outside of the Black community.
An abandoned N&W rock tunnel in LBurg is on a trail that comes near the station. Over the hill is the riverfront, site of the demolished Union Station which had a fancy roof. The Depot Grille on the river is on 9th Street, a straight shot up 190 vertical feet to the top of this stairway, which rises the last 75 feet (LOC picture, public domain):
Sometimes a freight train spills into the river.
(*) Many Virginia Quakers, who had founded entire counties, ended up moving to other colonies or territories. It's a long history I won't get into. (Politics in London, Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, Second Great Awakening, slavery splits.) One contention they had with London and its official religion was keeping their own records of birth, marriage and death. Many of those records moved with the congregations, first to western places like Lynchburg, then further. Another contention was over social mixing.
Lburg is the Hill City. Adjoining the station was an industrial area, and it has good documentation (click "Nomination Form"). Interesting. One mill was three city blocks. Mill towns in Virginia were known for having good football teams, but Lynchburg was larger. It currently has about the same metro population as fast-growing Charlottesville. Lynchburg these days is not making clothes, but makes some very large things of several different types, which end up oversized on the highway. The city fought hard for that highway to be an interstate, but I-64 was routed north over a much higher pass, then shelved into the side of the Blue Ridge to avoid horse farms and/or inflate the contract. The speed limits on Lynchburg's US-29 have gone up to interstate speed in some stretches going to North Carolina.
I came across another kind of industry there. Adjacent to a Mennonite store, a younger member was running an aquaculture operation.
The Civil War gets a lot of attention from amateur historians, and this article mentions the city's Quaker heritage*, and perhaps its echo in lukewarm support for the Confederacy. By the 1920s much less of that kind of thinking remained, outside of the Black community.
An abandoned N&W rock tunnel in LBurg is on a trail that comes near the station. Over the hill is the riverfront, site of the demolished Union Station which had a fancy roof. The Depot Grille on the river is on 9th Street, a straight shot up 190 vertical feet to the top of this stairway, which rises the last 75 feet (LOC picture, public domain):
Sometimes a freight train spills into the river.
(*) Many Virginia Quakers, who had founded entire counties, ended up moving to other colonies or territories. It's a long history I won't get into. (Politics in London, Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, Second Great Awakening, slavery splits.) One contention they had with London and its official religion was keeping their own records of birth, marriage and death. Many of those records moved with the congregations, first to western places like Lynchburg, then further. Another contention was over social mixing.
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JamesWhitcombRiley
Lead Service Attendant
Also called the Park Avenue Bridge. Map from 1927, the single-dashed lines in the streets are "electric railways."
Living in Greensboro we have a lot of Quakers in this area. Guilford College is a Quaker college and they were prominent in caring for the wounded on both side in the American Revolutionary Way battle that was a Pyrrhic victory for the British and soon after the British were were signing some documents to end it all in Yorktown. They were also involved in the Underground Railroad pre-Civil War.
I wonder and I assume this is the case, that the Quakers in Greensboro moved down from Va.
The neighboring city of Winston-Salem has a very strong Moravian presence. From my understanding the Moravian in W-S moved from more northern colonies down. I think it was easier to land in a port city up north and find your way down to North Carolina than to land in a NC port and move into the Piedmont of the state.
I wonder and I assume this is the case, that the Quakers in Greensboro moved down from Va.
The neighboring city of Winston-Salem has a very strong Moravian presence. From my understanding the Moravian in W-S moved from more northern colonies down. I think it was easier to land in a port city up north and find your way down to North Carolina than to land in a NC port and move into the Piedmont of the state.
How do I have no memory of the longer tunnel by the river? I took the Crescent north to DC last Memorial Day but the Carolinian south back to Greensboro so only had one shot at it, but then in June we took the Crescent both directions to NYP. Southbound the train is in Lynchburg at 10 PM so it is dark any time of the year, and we were running a bit late due to a storm that knocked a tree down and the NEC to Roanoke was having even more trouble it seems that was in front of us. It was clearly dark and I know my wife was already enjoying the gentle rocking of the train as she was asleep. So I would not have noticed a dark tunnel as it was dark enough everywhere out the window. I just do not remember the 2nd tunnel by the river. Funny how memory works.
Well the wife and I are taking a trip back to DC over Memorial Day for a baseball game so I am going to be sure to keep an eye out for both tunnels. Crescent north and Carolinian south again.
Lynchburg and Durham Division. I assume Durham, NC. That needs some explaining. This was the Southern mainline and Durham would have been on the H-line (now NC-Line) and they is no wye in Greensboro to Durham from Lynchburg. Or did this division include part of the Southern mainline and then move over to a branch line that found its way to Durham. Or is there another Durham I am not thinking of?
