Schenley Tunnel (also known as the Neville Street Tunnel and Pittsburgh Junction Railroad Tunnel) is a

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

tunnel in

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The tunnel runs beneath Neville Street in the city's North Oakland neighborhood; the south portal is at the upper end of

Junction Hollow Junction Hollow is a small wooded valley bordering the west flanks of Schenley Park and the campus of Carnegie Mellon University and the southern edge of the University of Pittsburgh's campus in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The valley runs south t ...

emerging from under Filmore St., the north emerges from under Centre Ave. into a ravine that opens into Skunk Hollow, between North Oakland and Bloomfield. Schenley Tunnel measures in length and runs about beneath Neville Street. It carries

CSX Transportation CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...

P&W Subdivision The P&W Subdivision is a railroad line owned and operated by CSX Transportation, the Allegheny Valley Railroad (AVR), and the Buffalo and Pittsburgh Railroad (BPRR) in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. The line runs from Rankin north through Pitts ...

. The

Allegheny Valley Railroad The Allegheny Valley Railroad is a class III railroad that operates in Western Pennsylvania, and is owned by Carload Express, Carload Express, Inc. AVR acts as a feeder line connecting its many and varied customers to Class I railroads such as ...

, a

short-line railroad :''Short Line is also one of the four railroads in the American version of the popular board game Monopoly, named after the Shore Fast Line, an interurban streetcar line.'' A shortline railroad is a small or mid-sized railroad company that opera ...

, uses the tunnel for regional services.

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

's ''Capitol Limited'' also uses the tunnel when entering and leaving the city.

History

Excavation on the tunnel began about May 1883 and continued for nine months. By August 1883, a vertical shaft reached the tunnel's midpoint, and additional excavation began from the inside, working in both directions. In May 1884, brick masons were hired to build the arched passage lining the tunnel. The track was completed on September 24, 1884 and the ''Pittsburgh Daily Post'' reported that an informal opening for involved business leaders was held September 30, 1884, but noted that about of the tunnel remained to be bricked. The official opening was delayed until December 1884, when the Junction Railroad's bridge across the

Allegheny River The Allegheny River ( ) is a long headwater stream of the Ohio River in western Pennsylvania and New York (state), New York. The Allegheny River runs from its headwaters just below the middle of Pennsylvania's northern border northwesterly into ...

and Herr's Island was opened, completing the connecting railroad. Shaw, Stearns & Norris, railroad builders from

Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and t ...

were the contractors. The entire Junction Railroad, about long, including the tunnel and a bridge crossing the Allegheny River at 33rd Street, cost about $1.9 million (equivalent to $ million in ). While the original Schenley tunnel is still in use, the bridge was replaced in 1920. Schenley Tunnel in 1914

References

External links

Schenley Tunnel
at pghbridges.com {{Pittsburgh Bridges and Tunnels, structure=tunnel Tunnels completed in 1884 Railroad tunnels in Pennsylvania