Y&S - Grimms Bridge Tunnel
Photos
Description
The Youngstown & Southern Railroad (Y&S) Smiths Ferry Branch extended for 13 miles from Negley, Ohio to the Ohio River at Smiths Ferry, Pennsylvania. The Y&S was a subsidiary of the Pittsburgh Coal Company.The branch included a 1,200-foot tunnel at Grimms Bridge, and a trestle over Beeler's Run.
Operation of the Smiths Ferry Branch began in mid-1936 with 50 to 60 carloads daily. Coal mined from Pittsburgh Coal along the Monongahela River was shipped by barge to Smiths Ferry where derrick shovels transferred it into a waiting train. The coal was then hauled a plant south of Negley where it was washed, graded and reloaded. It was then taken to Negley and transferred to the Pittsburgh, Lisbon & Western Railroad. The coal was hauled seven miles to Signal where it was taken over by the Youngstown & Suburban and delivered to steel mills in and around Youngstown.
In 1967, the Tassi Coal Company, a strip mine operation, went bankrupt. The mining in the Grimms Bridge area included work on a hill above the Grimms Bridge tunnel. After a heavy rain, spill and rock slid over the edge of the hill and covered the south end of the tunnel.
Without the funds to clean up the tunnel, the Y&S sought federal permission to abandon the Negley-Smiths Ferry Branch on April 26, 1977.
Facts
- Overview
- Abandoned tunnel on Formerly Youngstown & Southern Railroad
- Location
- Columbiana County, Ohio
- Status
- Derelict/abandoned
- Future prospects
- Future rail-to-trail.
- Builder
- - Booth & Glinn Co.
- Design
- Tunnel
- Dimensions
-
Total length: 1,200.0 ft.
- Also called
- Grimms Tunnel
- Approximate latitude, longitude
- +40.67563, -80.53895 (decimal degrees)
40°40'32" N, 80°32'20" W (degrees°minutes'seconds") - Approximate UTM coordinates
- 17/538964/4502851 (zone/easting/northing)
- Quadrangle map:
- East Liverpool North
- Inventory number
- BH 75748 (Bridgehunter.com ID)
This page's URL is http://bridgehunter.com/oh/columbiana/bh75748/
The south portal has been opened after over 50 years. See video at link below. I am planning on visiting this site to photograph the tunnel portals later this year (after the smoke clears from the current health crisis).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO7u7rP2WoU