[Date Prev][Date Next]
[Chronological]
[Thread]
[Top]
(rshsdepot) Tunnel, NY
Cohen: Make a date with Tunnel's rail history
by ELIZABETH COHEN
Folks in Tunnel occasionally joke about the place. "Have you seen the Tunnel airport?" one person who grew up there recently asked me. They chidingly say they went to "Tunnel University" and work at the "Tunnel Industrial Complex." Oh, and we shop at the Tunnel Mall.
The truth is, Tunnel comprises about a dozen houses and a U.S. Post Office. Oh, and the tunnel itself, an engineering coup that burrows through Belden Hill off Tunnel Road and pops out 2,239 feet beyond.
People get sick of me writing about Tunnel. "Will somebody PLEASE tell ELIZABETH COHEN that she lives in West Colesville and that Tunnel is NOT a town," a reader wrote the last time I went on about the place.
OK, he's right. Technically. Long ago, Tunnel started to shrink. The hotels, the railroad depot, the Villecco cheese factory -- all are gone.
But a town is a place because of its history, too. And on Tuesday, Tunnel has some major history to commemorate. There will be a celebration from 5 to 6:30 p.m. of the 135th anniversary of the tunnel itself. A plaque will be presented at 5 p.m. at the post office in a commemoration ceremony of the famous "battle of the tunnel." There will be a show of historical photographs and materials relating to the tunnel, and a screening of Saratoga Trunk -- a movie in which the tunnel (as well as Ingrid Bergman and Gary Cooper) has a starring role.
For those who are not privy to the story of this historical occasion (where have you been?), the battle took place in 1869 at the rail station at Tunnel. There, two warring railroad barons fought for control of the line. Jay Gould and Jim Fisk of the Erie railroad tried to take over Joseph Ramsey's Albany and Susquehanna line. The tycoons and their hired street-fighters battled it out; trains crashed and one tipped over. In the end, Ramsey's A&S prevailed -- after the governor of New York interceded and put a militia in command until the ownership issue could be sorted out. The A&S was later sold to the Delaware and Hudson.
The tunnel is still special today. We look at it each morning when we drive by, a box in the hillside, full of darkness and mystery. It has been enlarged and modernized over the years so it can handle the flow of trains carrying containers full of logs and chemicals and other things we would probably rather not know about.
But the coo and chatter of the trains in the evening, the gentle shake of the ground when they pass, the magic way they vanish into the hill -- all make us feel a part of Tunnel. A place we know very much exists, no matter what the maps say.
By the way, on Tuesday, there will be snacks, face painting for kids and even a barbershop quartet on hand.
Sounds like a party to me. (Bring a can of food for CHOW.)
E-mail Cohen at ecohen_@_pressconnects.com.
=================================
The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org
------------------------------