(rshsdepot) Tunnel reaches end of the line

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

=46rom the Louisville, KY Courier-Journal=85

Tunnel reaches end of the line

POINT LEAVELL, Ky. -- One of Kentucky's few remaining old railroad tunnel=
s
that have been converted to highway use will soon be retired in Garrard
County.
The one-lane Point Leavell Tunnel, on Old Railroad Road near Ky. 52 betwe=
en
Lancaster and Paint Lick, will be closed to vehicular traffic when it is
bypassed by a six-mile section of highway now under construction.
The slightly more than one-tenth-mile tunnel, chiseled through solid
limestone, was opened in June 1868 and served Louisville & Nashville
Railroad locomotives until 1932. Then the former railroad bed and tunnel
were converted to use by automobile traffic.
"I've played in it and been through it thousands of times," said W.K. Hur=
t,
86, who has lived near the tunnel all his life. "Us kids, when we'd hear =
the
train coming, we'd go in the tunnel and lay down against the wall, and it
would come right on through, right by us. You could feel the heat off the
old engine."
Hurt remembers his grandmother telling him that her grandmother always sa=
id
that the Point Leavell Tunnel and the much larger, long-abandoned Spainho=
wer
Tunnel, about two miles away, were built by crews of Irishmen who started
digging and blasting from each end.
"I don't see how they did it," Hurt said. "Both tunnels have a curve in
them, but these Irishmen come right together from both ends and never mis=
sed
each other, and you can't find where they come together."
Some local residents who have been using the Point Leavell Tunnel all the=
ir
lives say they will miss passing through it every day. But Fred Hammond o=
f
the state Department of Highways said that while a guardrail will be erec=
ted
at one end of the tunnel, he knows of no plans to close off the landmark =
to
hikers and sight-seers.
"A lot of neighbors go there when there's a tornado," said Barbara Todd, =
who
lives just down the road. "A lot of them live in trailers, and that's the=
ir
protection."
Hurt says that rocks occasionally dislodge from the roof of the tunnel an=
d
fall on cars that are passing through.
"Claude Clark from over at Manse -- one fell on the hood of his truck," H=
urt
said. "And one fell in the back of my son-in-law's truck and scared him."
In the winter, when large icicles form at the entrances of the tunnel, ma=
ny
people stop to take pictures. Barbara Todd recalls that during many winte=
rs,
her family and others often gathered icicles from the tunnel and crushed
them to use while making old-fashioned homemade ice cream.

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End of RSHSDepot Digest V1 #133
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