We took a ride through Savoy Mountain State Forest, and we ended up in the vicinity of the Hoosac Tunnel. The tunnel is almost five miles long. It was started in 1851 and finished in 1874.
In 1993 Paul was really into researching the first attempt to drill a hole through the mountain for the Hoosac Tunnel. This is a picture of what remains of a hole that they tried to make using a 24 foot diameter boring machine which got stuck and was unsuccessful. Eventually they created the tunnel using nitroglycerine and pneumatic drills.
We had a mission to find the east end, the west end, the central shaft, and the west shaft of the tunnel. The shafts were used during construction, and the central shaft is still used for ventilation of the tunnel. We spent many Saturdays exploring all around the area. The hardest one to find was the west shaft, as it was basically just a hole in the ground in the woods.
Today we found the central shaft again, and also the east end. It was amazing to me that we had a hard time finding them, when we had spent so much time around them. But....it was 19 years ago, and we are getting older, ha ha! We ran out of time to find the other two. That's for another ride!
Pictures from 1993
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| Central Shaft |
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| East Portal |
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| West Shaft |
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| West Shaft with fence around it |
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| West Portal |
2 comments:
All the property surrounding the West shaft is posted and there are houses everywhere down by the road. Some of those houses look like they don't call 911. I stumbled upon it today by accident. Observe that you can't go anywhere these days with out trespassing or doing something against the law.
I stumbled my way to the west portal about 20 years ago. Not easy to reach. Nothing would have gotten me to walk into that tunnel.
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