(rshsdepot) Tunnel: 'Hidden historical asset of Baltimore'

["Jim Dent" <james.dent_@_itochu.com>]

By Scott Calvert
Sun Staff
Originally published July 19, 2001
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The 1.7-mile Howard Street Tunnel that billowed smoke yesterday is not a
prominent part of the Baltimore landscape, not a source of great civic
pride. Yet the tunnel, mostly ignored and unseen - even unknown to many
residents - is hugely important, the way rail freight basically gets from
here to there along the East Coast.

And it's hardly just a functional workhorse. The 106-year-old tunnel is
distinctive in many ways. It's said to be the longest underground conduit=
 of
freight on the Atlantic seaboard; the first example of heavy-duty railroa=
d
electrification in the United States, possibly the world; and a model
example of soft-earth construction, built at a time when steam locomotive=
s
huffed and puffed through mostly rock-blasted tunnels.

"Most people who walk the streets of Baltimore don't know where the tunne=
l
ends, how long it is or how historical it is," Courtney B. Wilson, execut=
ive
director of the B&O Railroad Museum, said last night. "It really is a hid=
den
historical asset of Baltimore."

If the tunnel's place in the public's consciousness has waned since
passenger trains stopped running there four decades ago, its importance h=
as
not. Today, more freight traffic than ever before - perhaps three dozen
trains a day - rumbles below Howard Street, carrying everything from
hazardous chemicals to fine goods.

"It's the only freight through-route on the so-called Northeast corridor =
- -
=66rom the South, going through Washington, coming up through Baltimore a=
nd
going to Philadelphia and New York," said Herbert H. Harwood, a retired C=
SX
Corp. official and B&O Railroad historian. "Most north-south freight goes
over that route."

The tunnel was born of necessity. The B&O Railroad had a nettlesome probl=
em
by the 1880s: Its southern terminus was Camden Station, site of present-d=
ay
Oriole Park, leaving no good way to link up with its new Philadelphia lin=
e
that began on the east side. The railroad's imperfect solution was to fer=
ry
rail cars from Locust Point over to Canton.

In 1890, Harwood said, the B&O finally "bit the bullet" and began buildin=
g
the Howard Street Tunnel. But that presented a whole new set of problems.
For one thing, the path from Camden Station to the tunnel's terminus at
Mount Royal Station was all uphill, a steep 4.8 percent grade.

Steam engines could have chugged along, but not without spewing vast amou=
nts
of smoke and gas. And city fathers had already dealt unhappily with that
scenario - trains using an earlier tunnel polluted homes and businesses
through vents. The railroad was told it could not do the same to Howard
Street, then a major thoroughfare and home to department stores.

That quandary gave rise to the country's first heavy-duty electrified rai=
l
service. An electric locomotive pulled trains, including the steam
locomotive, from Camden Station up to Mount Royal (and later as far as
Waverly). The advent of diesel in the 1950s made that unnecessary.

Even with that problem solved, there were others. "You're dealing with a
completely built-up city on top of you that you can't disturb, and traffi=
c
you can't disturb," Harwood said.

But disturb it they did. One building - City College high school - fell
apart. The railroad paid for a new school at what is now Howard and Centr=
e
streets.

Another problem, Harwood said, was the ground itself. "They were going
through unstable soft ground a good bit of the way, as opposed to going
through rock."

The tunnel was completed in 1895 at a cost of $2.2 million, Wilson said. =
It
originally covered 7,344 feet, or about 1.4 miles. It lay 60 feet
underground at its deepest, 3 feet at its shallowest.

Passenger service ended for the most part in 1958, with the last passenge=
rs
riding beneath Howard in 1961. The freight never stopped rolling.

The possibility of a fire or other disaster did not go unconsidered. More
than 15 years ago, officials fretted over the danger from shipments that
included flammable gases, toxic chemicals and, occasionally, explosives.

In 1985, a federal transportation safety official observed: "The problem
would be just getting in there to fight the fire. ... If you had an
explosion, fire could shoot out both ends like a bazooka."

Over the past decade, the tunnel has gotten even busier because more Conr=
ail
freight has been routed along the CSX line, Harwood said.

And the tunnel has actually grown as it has aged. It originally ended nex=
t
to Camden Station, near the present location of the light-rail tracks.

The south portal moved farther south when Interstate 395 was built and ag=
ain
in the 1990s to make way for the light-rail tracks. Now, the light at the
end of the tunnel can be seen outside PSINet Stadium.

Even so, Harwood said, "It's basically an invisible line. Until smoke sta=
rts
pouring out it."
Copyright =A9 2001, The Baltimore Sun

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