Looking north from the Mill Street crossing we see the southbound Pan Am 16R detour train passing through the 278 ft long tunnel under the center of the village of Bellows Falls.
The tunnel was initially constructed in 1851 by the Vermont Valley Railroad. The Vermont Valley would ultimately end up in the fold of the Boston & Maine Railroad in 1893 and this tunnel would come to be a choke point on what one the B&M's core north south gateway to and from Canada as their Conn River mainline. In addition to seeing frequent B&M freight and passenger trains the Central Vermont Railway also operated thru here on trackage rights.
In 1988 the former B&M owned section from Brattleboro to Windsor became CV property (in a complicated tale of legal wrangling not to be retold here) with B&M successor Guilford (now Pan Am Railways) retaining trackage rights. CV successor New England Central now owns the route and this tunnel is located at MP 144.56 on their Palmer Subdivision.
Over its lifespan, the tunnel floor has been lowered three times; once in 1897, again in 1977 (by the Boston & Maine Railroad), and most recently in 2007 (as a joint venture between the Vermont Agency of Transportation, FHWA, and NECR with consultants; Parson Brinckerhoff Engineering & ECI Rail Constructors, Inc.) in order to accommodate increased car and locomotive heights at their respective periods of time.
The 2007 project lowered the floor an additional 3 ft to allow for clearance of modern multilevel auto rack cars and this view clearly shows the pronounced dip in the track profile to provide the 20.8 ft vertical clearance.
