March 2011

Deck Bridge Stone Abutment At Tunnel 1

The moving of the 12" water main at Tunnel 1 helped us ET fans tremendously. All the brush that previously surrounded the stone abutment and pier on the west side of the Doe River has been removed and the east side has been cleaned up also. Views and access not available for many years are now there for us. The abutment and pier on the east side have been concrete since before the railroad closed up shop. This side remained stone and makes for a very nice view. There's the old highway bridge in the background, amazingly still standing since around 1915, although they've now moved the water main from the bridge down into the riverbed. They've also moved the 12" pipe that was buried in the tunnel to being encased in concrete along one of the walls. Not very pretty, but at least the tunnel is still open. There's been some vandalism of the water main infrastructure here recently, I hope they don't close down access to this historic site. There's a great story with lots of photos and a scale drawing of this bridge in the Fall/Winter 2004 issue of the "Stemwinder". If you'd like to find out more, but don't have access to that issue, it's available here at this link.