My friend Dan and I had been talking about finding and exploring this train tunnel over in Christiansburg for a while. We finally said, "Let's go do it!"
Well, last week, it was either Wednesday or Thursday, I can't remember which, we did just that. It was about 10 o'clock at night. He dug out his topo (topographical) map and we looked it over to find the best route to get there. We saddled up in the car and went out looking. We went down this long winding dirt road, till we got to the end. The road continued down into a field of high grass, that was really an overgrown driveway. We probably would have gone on down by car, but we didn't want whoever lived at the end, not to mention the old lady who was standing out on her porch staring at us, to call the cops on us. So, we turned around to see if we could find a better way to get there.
There was another road on the map that appeared to cross the tracks, but it was a little more out of the way. We tried going down that road, hoping maybe it was an easier, safer way to the tunnel, but were foiled by a locked gate, about two miles out, stretching across the dirt road that led to the tracks. sigh It looked as if we were going to have to go back to the grassy driveway and the snooping old lady.
We went back down the road, but not to the end this time. If the old lady saw our car a second time, she'd probably get nervous, as little old ladies are want to do. We had to find an inconspicuous place to park the car, somewhere off the little dirt road we were on, and preferably not in someone's driveway. Even better if we could find a place completely out of sight. Well, someone was looking out for us that night. We found this little tiny road that branched off to the left. I drove the car up it (a very steep incline), hoping that there wasn't a house right over the top of the hill. There wasn't. whew! It was a dirt clearing. Looked like there was some construction work or something going on. No grass. Corrugated piping that looked like it had either been dug up, or was going to be buried later. We got out of the car. It was dark out. We heard a great bellowing bark just over one of the surrounding hills. Oh great. A dog. And by the sound of it, a huge dog. I was really hoping that it was a chained dog. I figure it was. We didn't get chewed up.
After exploring the clearing to make sure there was no one that was going to notice or complain about the car, we set off down the rest of the dirt road on foot. We got to the end of the main (if you could call it main) dirt road, and paused to decide what to do. The snoopy lady was probably watching out the window. Her TV was on, so we knew she was still up. (It was 11 or 11:30 at this point.) We had concocted a nice little story about practicing night orienteering for Search and Rescue to explain ourselves if the cops did show, but we, thankfully, never had to. So, anyway, we walked along the other side of the street, keeping to the grass to soften our tread, and headed purposefully down the grassy driveway (if you act like you belong somewhere, people often won't question you). There was a street light over the fence opening that we had to go through, so that was the moment of truth. Well, we never saw hide nor hair of the old lady. Another obstacle overcome.
We trekked down the road/driveway for a while. It was beautiful out. Since we were out of the city, we could see all the stars. There was a house at the end of the grass road, and our path, according to the map, led us right past it. Since we didn't know if it was occupied, flashlights were out of the question. There was a moon out, so we could see reasonably well. We tried to skirt around the house, staying in the brush (which was quite thick), but it just got thicker and thicker, so we had to back track, and stay on the road. No one had driven across the road in a good while, we gathered, since none of the grass had been trampled down. There were no cars parked in sight, so we just moseyed along past the house. No lights came on in the brief time we were in sight, so we made it through okay.
Now we had to trek down into the surrounding woods. More fun!! It was a fairly steep decline, and quite dark under the canopy of the trees. But after we got a little way in, we decided that no one would be able to see the flashlights, so we fired them up. They helped only a little.
We worked our way down the slope, till we were thwarted by a bank of Mountain Laurel. It herded us a little out of the way, but we finally found an opening that took us to a dry stream bed at the bottom of the slope. From there, we followed the bed for a little ways, where we found the property line marked by an old rusty mesh fence. It was easy to go under it where the stream used to flow. Now we had to go up the other side of the valley. It was a little easier going, though. After a couple of minutes, we crested the top of the hill, and there were the tracks. Of course it couldn't be that easy. The tracks were in a valley of their own. About 6-10 feet down a steep drop. So we had to walk along the top of the hill to find a depression or something where there was less distance to drop, or something a little less steep we could walk down. Finally we found a place, and lowered ourselves onto the track.
The first thing we had to do was find a landmark, or leave one if there were none available, so we'd know where we could find our path back into the woods. Finding the car was kind of a good idea to us. So we walked along the tracks a little way in both directions. There were these neat old pillars that used to be supports for a bridge, but they had been in disuse for a long time. There wasn't much left but a couple of pieces of crumbling concrete jutting up out of the ground on either side of the track. Okay. Now we had our landmarks. Time to go to the tunnel.
It was about a hundred yards or so down to the tunnel opening. We decided to wait for a train to come by before we started in. (This tunnel is approximately a half mile long.) We didn't have long to wait. Pretty soon we heard, or rather felt, the distinctive rumble (sound carried a long way in that valley) of a train. Not too long after that, we saw the light glowing eerily up the tracks. We climbed up on the bank beside the tracks and watched the train disappear into the tunnel. After the last car went by (not a caboose, just a coal car with a flashing light on it), we delved into the tunnel.
My first consideration as we went in was to make sure there was a place we could get out of the way should a train happen to come while inside. There was a ledge along the side. Didn't look like much, maybe just shy of a foot wide, but it would keep us out of the way of a train, provided that nothing was hanging off the side of it. My mind wandered dangerously off to imagining myself getting flailed by a piece of wire or a pole hanging of the side of a train and then getting dragged under the wheels.
So off we went. After a while, we noticed there were numbers painted in now fading black on the left wall. They were spaced out evenly, and decreasing. So we figured that they would count down to zero, when we got out. We were standing at number 122. We progressed on down, making fairly good time. The numbers were dwindling fairly rapidly. Occasionally we jogged, just to lower the time in the tunnel on the off chance that a train should come. Along the way, we found an animal (maybe a cat or an opossum, we couldn't really tell) that hadn't been quick enough to get off the tracks. The train had turned it inside out, and there were thousands of maggots playing around inside it (yum yum). This was not a comforting scene for us (off my mind went again to being dragged under the wheels of a train), so we started looking back over our shoulders, and picked up the pace a little. There was a light mist permeating the tunnel, devouring our flashlight beams.
We found a neat old phone that looked like it could have been used for emergencies or something, but it was completely rusted over, and the dry cell batteries were corroded through. Though from here, the wires coming to it looked like they may still be hooked up to something.
Well, enough dallying. Off we went. Not too much more exciting happened on the way down the tunnel. After we got a little farther along, we felt the air shift, and get a little fresher. It had been tainted with diesel exhaust and coal dust all along the way. We turned off our lights, and could see a faint glow ahead. The light at the end of the tunnel! We jogged the rest of the way out. And still no sign of a train. Cool. That meant we'd have plenty of time to get through on the way back. It turned out that the tunnel was a little shorter than we'd figured. The numbers stopped at 26, instead of zero. And I also noticed that the wires that looked like they might have gone somewhere from the phone ended rather abruptly at the end of the tunnel. That phone wasn't going to be ringing any time soon.
Time to explore and wait for the next train. As we walked from the tunnel entrance, we saw two very dilapidated one room buildings, one on each side of the track. Hmmm. Could there be someone lurking in the shadows of one of those buildings? One way to find out. We climbed the stairs (if you could call those broken slabs of concrete stairs), calling out that if there was anyone in there that didn't want to be bothered to say something and we'd make a hasty retreat. There was no one, except a bird that looked quite pissed that we were invading its territory. It was a neat old building. There was a huge missing section in the roof, and you could look up and see stars through the opening. There was a hole in the wall that looked like a wood stove had once been there. And there were weeds dangling down from the opening in the roof. The beer cans in the corner told us that we weren't the only one's who'd been here recently.
Well, now all we had to do was wait here for the train to come. We squatted down to make ourselves more comfortable (the ground was wet, you see), and started chatting. Of course sitting in a dark abandoned building way out in the middle of nowhere does not set a scene for cheery topics. We ended up talking about all the "What if's" for this little adventure, and of course our imaginations kicked in and the talk went from some drunk attacking us to the slithering tentacled beast that could come out from under the stairs. At that point, the tracks became very inviting. We decided we'd explore the area a little more.
It looked like there was a place we could stand up on top of the tunnel entrance, so we decided to try and climb up. There was an inclined area on either side of the entrance. It was really rough concrete. But it looked possible. Well, as we got farther up, the incline increased. Time to call that little jaunt quits. My hands were already raw from the concrete, no sense slipping and getting my body raw from the concrete. Back to the building, with a promise to each other that we wouldn't start talking silly again. (It was a perfect setting for a horror movie, though.)
After a few minutes, we could hear a faint rumbling, and then a little later, we saw the glow of the train light and heard the whistle blast as the train entered the tunnel. It looked really eerie, like one of the UFO things you always see with the light glowing and the fog billowing out of the tunnel. After a few minutes, the rumbling got noticeably louder, and the glow from the tunnel started to expand. Then we saw the train engine as it roared out of the opening. I looked into the tunnel, and the ledge didn't look too comforting with a huge train roaring so close to it. But hey, we had an hour between trains, right? Not to worry!
After the train finally passed, we decided it was time to head on back. It was getting late, and we were already tired. I checked the watch. Plenty of time.
Off we go! Wall marker 40. I hear a faint rumble. Probably just us echoing down the tunnel, or the train that passed us by still echoing on the tracks. Wall marker 55. I'm less certain that the rumble is us. Let's jog. We jog/walk for a while. Mile marker 80. Definitely not us, but the train's not due for another half hour! Pick up the pace a little. Wall marker 100. We can just barely see the outline of the sky glowing faintly ahead. Rumbling getting much louder. And then we notice the glow at the end of the tunnel is steadily brightening. Oh shit! It is a train!! Haul ass!!! We tore down the tunnel as fast as we dared, not wanting to trip and sprain an ankle on the ties. I'm falling behind. God, I'm finding out how bad shape I'm in! Good thing for adrenaline! Wall marker 110. Dan's just getting out, telling me I still have time if I hurry. I give it everything I have! I know I could survive on the ledge, but what if something happened to be hanging off the side of the train... Wall marker 120, just a few more yards. Finally, the end! I can see the train just ahead. We drop under the rock guard fencing, splashing through the muck that had accumulated there and collapse in a niche in the rock wall. We made it!!
5 seconds.
The train thunders past, and the engineer shines a light down on us. Hmmm. Will he radio the cops? Better get off the tracks, and not have to worry about it. Once we get into the woods, they'll never find us. We stagger down the tracks, and climb up the hill where we descended earlier. My adrenaline is starting to wear off. And my body's going, "Excuse me, what the Hell did you just do to me?!?" But I had to push at least to the woods.
It was unlikely that the engineer called the police. He was probably just thinking to himself, "Stupid kids!" But, better safe than sorry. (Kind of a stupid thought, considering what we had just done, isn't it?)
A couple of minutes after we got through the barrier of the woods, my body decided that it was not going to be ignored any more. We stopped for a breather. I sat down. Have you ever pushed yourself too hard? So hard that you feel like you are going to toss your cookies right there? Well, that's how I felt after the adrenaline wore off. I was not a happy camper at that moment. After a couple of minutes, when my breathing had slowed to a vigorous pant, we headed on. We went back under the rusty fence in the creek bed, then back up to the grassy driveway. Still no sign of life in the house. Once we hit level ground, my body was still protesting, but it was at least tolerable.
We went back out onto the dirt road, past the snoopy old lady's house, who was outside watching us. She went into her house right after we passed, probably to call the cops. Well, that neighborhood is far enough out that it would have taken a good 10 minutes for the cops to get there. No problem. We hiked on down to the turn off that led up to the car. Ahhh, that car seat looked sooo inviting. I handed Dan my keys, and told him that he was driving, 'cause I was certainly in no condition to drive. I was seeing blue flashy, swirly lights in my eyes. We headed out, and made it without any sign of the cops, thank goodness! That would have really just capped off the evening! I slept really well that night.
And so ends our little escapade into the train tunnel. We both agreed that we should have been smarter and at least checked out the train schedule ahead of time. Ahhh, to have foresight like that of our hindsight!!!
Copyright 1996 Scott Garrett
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