BELLOWS FALLS TUNNEL  (photos)

  The Bellows Falls Tunnel is a historic landmark located in the center of the Village of Bellows Falls, in the Town of Rockingham , on the New England Central Railroad (NECR) mainline.  The Vermont Valley Railroad constructed the tunnel in 1851.  The tunnel is constructed of laid-up dimension stone in a horseshoe shaped arch.  The tunnel is 278 feet long and extends from the north side of Mill Street to within 157 feet of the Bellows Falls Canal Bridge .

   Prior to this project, the tunnel floor had been lowered twice by the Boston and Maine Railroad – once in 1897 and again in 1977 - to accommodate increased car and locomotive heights at that time. The tunnel was a choke point for the movement of modern autoracks and double stack containers into and out of Vermont and Senator Jeffords was able to obtain an earmark to increase the vertical clearance in the tunnel.

    VTrans, FHWA and NECR worked cooperatively in the engineering and construction of the modifications to the tunnel. The tunnel foundation and track structure has been lowered to provide vertical clearance for passage of first generation double stack (one international container and one national container) and auto-rack cars (19 ft. – 7 in.).  Tunnel foundation modifications have been constructed to enable future track lowering for full double stack clearance (20 ft. 8 in.) without additional tunnel foundation underpinning after the railroad adjusts the elevation of their Canal Bridge .

   Upon completion of the tunnel project, NECR will experience approximately five thousand (5,000) additional freight cars per year operating over their mainline in Vermont .  Both NECR and the Green Mountain Railroad will benefit from the additional financial revenue associated with the increased freight travel across the state.  The additional revenue will help to financially stabilize both railroads’ continued operations.

   On August 22, 2007 , the Canadian National Railway Company in conjunction with the Providence and Worcester Railroad assisted NECR to supply a modified double stack car to be used as a test vehicle.  Multiple passages of the test vehicle documented operational compliance with the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association Guidelines for safe travel over the design vertical and horizontal curves through the tunnel.  NECR, the Agency, and FHWA need the documentation of the operational tolerances for freight train operation powered under a range of operating speeds prior to passage of modified double stack and auto-rack train passage through the tunnel.