The Tunnel
The Townline Tunnel is a two-cell reinforced concrete tunnel with a rectangular cross-section. The roof is a post-tensioned concrete slab.
The tunnel was built as a part of the Welland By-Pass project. Its construction was relatively easy since, like the Main Street Tunnel, it was being built at the same time as the channel above it and a simple cut and cover method could be used.
The tunnel provides a sidewalk for pedestrians, two lanes for vehicular traffic, as well as room for three sets of tracks for rail vehicles. It was opened for automobiles on July 13, 1972, and the first train crossed the tunnel on January 31, 1973.
The tunnel is 330 metres (1083 ft) long and 35 metres (115 ft) wide. Due to low grade required for trains, the approaches to the tunnel stretch 4 km (2.5 miles) in each direction. This necessited the removal of about 13,750,000 cubic meters (18,000,000 cubic yards) of material and construction of three viaducts on each side of the canal. As well, a solid earth plug had to be put into the Welland Recreational Waterway (the old alignment of the canal), cutting it in two (satellite photo). The construction cost $40 million. The middle rail line was removed in the 1990s and the two remaining tracks now serve as the CPR Hamilton Subdivision and the CPR Brookfield Siding.Townline Tunnel is known locally as the "Stinky Tunnel" due to the strong smell of rotten eggs as one passes through it.
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Famous quotes containing the word tunnel:
“The drama critic on your paper said my chablis-tinted hair was like a soft halo over wide set, inviting eyes, and my mouth, my mouth was a lush tunnel through which golden notes came.”
—Samuel Fuller (b. 1911)
“It is the light
At the end of the tunnel as it might be seen
By him looking out somberly at the shower,
The picture of hope a dying man might turn away from,
Realizing that hope is something else, something concrete
You can’t have.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)