Rating:
42570
{99}%
2 votes
CSX - Cumberland Gap Tunnel
Photos
South Portal at Cumberland Gap Thanksgiving 2007
The rail line split behind this view and one line (Now abandoned)goes over another deck girder bridge.
Photo taken by James Norwood
Enlarge
BH Photo #140860
Description
Built 1888 with two distinctive uphill grades beginning on either end, with apex 1,000 feet inside mountain. Caved in 1894 and rebored; caved in again in 1896 and rebored. Built underneath gap instead of through it, because the uplift of rock under Cumberland Gap was too steep to negotiate. Crosses from Claiborne County, Tennessee to Bell County, Kentucky, with entire Lee County, Virginia portion underground.
Facts
- Overview
- Tunnel under Cumberland Mountain on CSX Railroad at Cumberland Gap
- Location
- Cumberland Gap, Claiborne County, Tennessee, and Lee County, Virginia
- Status
- Open to traffic
- History
- Built in 1888 -1889 by the Powell's Valley Railroad; sold the same year to the Knoxville, Cumberland Gap and Louisville Railroad; sold in 1896 to the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. Now owned by CSX Railroad to connect Norfolk-Southern RR
- Railroads
- - CSX Railroad (CSX)
- Knoxville, Cumberland Gap & Louisville Railroad (KCG&L)
- Powell's Valley Railroad (PV)
- Southern Railway (SOU)
- Design
- Tunnel
- Dimensions
-
Total length: 3,741.0 ft. (0.7 mi.)
- Approximate latitude, longitude
- +36.60365, -83.67367 (decimal degrees)
36°36'13" N, 83°40'25" W (degrees°minutes'seconds")
- Approximate UTM coordinates
- 17/260853/4054234 (zone/easting/northing)
- Quadrangle map:
- Middlesboro South
- Inventory number
- BH 42570 (Bridgehunter.com ID)
Update Log
- November 27, 2020: New photo from Josh Schmid
- June 1, 2009: New photo from James Norwood
- May 17, 2009: Added by James Norwood
Sources
- James Norwood
- Calvin Sneed - us43137415 [at] yahoo [dot] com
- Josh Schmid
The picture is of the tunnel in Cumberland Gap, Tn (right next to the Iron Furnace parking area), but it's in the Cumberland Mountains not under Clinch Mountain. Clinch Mountain is a few miles southeast of this picture.