page_title: Hoosac Tunnel
section_title: Operations
hierarchical_section_title: Hoosac Tunnel / Operations
caption_attribution_description: English: East Portal of the Hoosac Tunnel, Florida, Massachusetts
context_page_description: The Hoosac Tunnel is a 4.75-mile active railroad tunnel in western Massachusetts that passes through the Hoosac Range, an extension of Vermont's Green Mountains. It runs in a straight line from its east portal, along the Deerfield River in the town of Florida, to its west portal in the city of North Adams.
  Work began in 1851 under an estimated cost of $2 million and ended in 1875, having used $21 million. At its completion, the tunnel was the world's second-longest, after the 8.5-mile Mont Cenis Tunnel through the French Alps. It was the longest tunnel in North America until the 1916 completion of the Connaught Tunnel under Rogers Pass in British Columbia. It remains the longest active transportation tunnel east of the Rocky Mountains, and as of 1989 is the sixth longest railroad tunnel in North America. The American Society of Civil Engineers made the tunnel an Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1975.
  "Hoosac" is an Algonquian word meaning "place of stones".
context_section_description: The Troy and Boston Railroad and its Southern Vermont Railroad and Troy and Greenfield Railroad opened in 1859 from Troy, New York, on the New York Central Railroad and Hudson River Railroad, east to North Adams at the west portal of the tunnel.
  The 1863 state buyout of the Troy and Greenfield Railroad opened the way for competition through the tunnel. The Boston, Hoosac Tunnel and Western Railway was organized in 1877 to build from near the Massachusetts–Vermont border, where state ownership ended, parallel to the Troy and Boston Railroad to near Johnsonville, New York and then west via Schenectady to Rotterdam Junction on what became the New York, West Shore, and Buffalo Railway in 1880. The line was being planned as a part of the Delaware and Hudson Company's system and as part of the Erie Railroad system via the Delaware and Hudson Company's Albany and Susquehanna Railroad. East of Greenfield, the east end of state ownership, the BHT&W would have built its own line to terminal facilities at Winthrop.
  The first train passed through the tunnel on February 9, 1875.  Regular service via the tunnel between Boston and Troy, New York began the following year. The tunnel and Troy and Greenfield Railroad were bought by the Fitchburg Railroad in 1877.  The Boston and Maine Railroad bought the Fitchburg Railroad in 1900.
  Competition between the two companies caused various court challenges were made. In late 1878 the T&B attempted to evict the BHT&W from the roadbed of the abandoned Albany Northern Railroad between Hart's Falls and Eagle Bridge. The BHT&W lost that case, but continued to use the right-of-way. The case lasted until late 1881 when it was overturned. In May 1879, a frog war was feared at Hoosick Junction, where the BHT&W was to cross the T&B's Troy and Bennington Railroad. In July, Cornelius Vanderbilt, who owned the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad, acquired a controlling interest in the T&B, threatening to build a branch to Saratoga Springs unless the BHT&W/D&H alliance was ended. In November, an appellate court ruled that the application to cross the Troy and Bennington was improperly made to the Troy and Boston, and the T&B claimed that the improvements, including a stone bridge, were forfeit.
  The first train ran over the full BHT&W to Mechanicville on December 6, 1879, and revenue service began December 20, with general offices at North Adams. In 1881, the BHT&W was being planned as part of a larger system west to Oswego and Buffalo. The line was not built, but the BHT&W opened an extension west to Rotterdam Junction on the New York, West Shore, and Buffalo Railway. The New York Central and Hudson River Railroad took over the NYWS&B in 1886, and in 1887 the Fitchburg Railroad bought both the T&B and the BHT&W, as well at the Troy and Greenfield Railroad, including the tunnel, ending the rivalry.
  In 1910, the tunnel was electrified with the goal of reducing smoke and increasing the speed of traffic. Three years later, traffic within the tunnel was so heavy, at 70,000 cars a month, that the power plant in Adams, with its 6000 kW generator, could not keep up. Power was then drawn from a nearby dam three miles north of the eastern entrance. In 1926, 3000  ft of the western end of the tunnel were deepened by 1.5  ft.
  Electrification ended in the tunnel in 1946 with the advent of diesel locomotives, and a fan was installed in the Central Shaft to remove Diesel exhaust fumes. Today, the Central Shaft system remains in place; however, ventilation relies on a single fan operating on low power due to the low number of trains on the line.
  The last regularly-scheduled Boston and Maine Railroad passenger train, the Minute Man, passed through the tunnel in 1958. 
  In 2009, ownership of the tunnel was transferred to Pan Am Southern, a 50-50 joint venture of Pan Am Railways and Norfolk Southern Railway. Freight trains through the tunnel are operated by Springfield Terminal Railway, the train operating subsidiary of Pan Am Railways.
  The route is currently used to transport freight but has seen excursion trains on rar
caption: East Portal c. 1915, showing test section at left
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