DL&W tunnel Oswego NY

Just a little fyi...got the chance to go in there a few months ago. amazingly all the rail and ties are still intact. the west end of tunnel is filled in for about 25 yards or so. The rest is all open. It is also very wet inside. east half is concrete and square the west end is stone arched. Sorry I dont have pics because they came out to dark. just wanted to let everyone know

Thanks for the info. Was going to walk through the tunnel back in 1973 but did not have a flashlight. Did photograph the west portal.

yeah its pretty neat...at the west end the city added some type of drainage into the tunnel. there is about a 2 foot culvert pipe on the northside of tunnel. Where that pipe comes in is where the fill ends and the tunnel begins. I was on a website and had to laugh...but a certain person said that the tunnel was narrowed down from a two track tunnel and he even quoted that with a picture. But us true oswegonians know that the DL&W was always narrow< and I mean narrow. The RW&O tunnel on east side was wide and had dual track and a switch inside. The unfortunate thing is that the tunnel is falling in some spots. As stated in my first post I think the reason for concrete on one end was for the support of increased traffic on Utica Street. Also even though we dont have any, but a good vibration of the earth could knock that old tunnel in as well as the Oswego & Syracuse Freight House cause the tunnel is directly underneath it. In fact little do people know that there is a manhole that goes right into it... Ok so long for now

Izzy, what is the location of this tunnel? I found an ICC accident report abouat an accident between a speeder and a locomotive inside the tunnel.

John

Can you get into the west end via the 2' pipe? Or if via the east end, is there a way to access the east portal?

sorry so late on reply....to russ...we entered via man door on east end....of course a few weeks ltr. the lock was changed....to jrs...yes there was an accident in there between a speeder and a loco. I think maybe several ppl. perrished. Still very neat in there. Just very wet and musty....maybe this year we can get permission again and get a decent amount of lighting to photograph better

Hehe, yeah, I found the east portal on my way driving to Rochester. Ties and rails still in there, eh? I know a friend who would LOVE to get in there. Yeah, getting permission would be much the better way. Who would we ask?

Im not really sure russ, being the president of the railroad museum and model rr club in oswego maybe i can some info and a date....ill let you know....nice by the way.....if you go down a few more blocks u can see the top of the portal....arched stone wall painted pinkish color

Is this the top of the tunnel portal? It's right in line with the freight house and I couldn't find anything else that looked like it from the aerials.

yes thats the portal....the fill goes back about 50 to 75 yrds or less. it goes right under the freight hs

Here's some info regarding the accident: https://cahiltondotcom.wordpress.com/20 ... -railroad/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

izzy1975 wrote:yes thats the portal....the fill goes back about 50 to 75 yrds or less. it goes right under the freight hs

In order to keep the radius of the curve as large as possible, the tunnel swings out to the south of the eastern end of the freight house. It's directly underneath the manhole cover. Then it swings back to the road and cuts under the corner of the western end of the freight house. I didn't understand why they did that until I realized that it would have needed a sharper curve to straighten out earlier.