Riders of the future Virginia & Truckee Railway locomotive will ride through historic tunnel no. 2, rather than around it.
Workers found an opening into the tunnel recently, which was dynamited shut in the 1970s, and also uncovered some of the original wood frame, said Gary Luce, a senior engineer with Geocon Consultants.
The discovery means the tunnel completion will be cheaper than going around the site, which would've wrecked the old-time ambiance, project managers said.
"On Friday afternoon we exposed the original support sets for the tunnel opening," he said.
Support rail has also been found. Because of this discovery, an archaeologist from Zeier & Associates has been monitoring the excavation.
State officials want to turn this public hazard into a historic spot along the V&T right-of-way, where they will run a $420,000 steam locomotive between Carson City and Virginia City. Until this recent discovery it's been uncertain if the tunnel could be saved for train travel.
Track has been laid from Gold Hill to American Flat, but just around the bend in the next phase of construction is tunnel 2. The tunnel reconstruction could cost up to $3 million, and project engineers see the tunnel passage as the best option to bring the train through the rugged terrain.
The alternatives were not viable, said project engineer Ken Dorr. Engineers would've had to take the train tracks around the hill, or cut passage out of the 500-foot-long hill.
"Both cases we would have major visual impacts and plus, in the case of daylighting the tunnel, we don't have any place to take the material that we would have to haul away.
"Tunnel 2 is fairly important from a historical perspective," Dorr said.
The original 566-foot-long tunnel burned in 1872, ignited by sparks from a passing locomotive. It was reconstructed two months later for rail passage. After the line was abandoned, another fire broke out in the tunnel in 1969. According to local lore, it was started by hippie squatters. The tunnel was dynamited shut around 1970 after it was declared a public hazard. The tunnel is located on the Lyon and Storey county line.
The new opening was found in the collapsed section of the tunnel on Sept. 1. Luce said the opening is about five feet high and about 15 feet across. The project has been kept secret in some cases because of the danger it poses to those who ignore the fencing and warning signs.
"We can see into the tunnel so we know where we are," Luce said. "We didn't know there would be (wood) sets in this pile of muck."
Workers can see several sets of the 12-foot-by-12 foot wood supports framed in a horseshoe shape that once supported the roof of the tunnel.
Luce can see about 30 feet into the tunnel from the opening, but what's there isn't a mystery. The west side of the tunnel that faces Virginia City was opened in late September. Luce and a team of eight workers walked all the way up to this collapsed section of the tunnel from the other side.
A mystery that is solved: how much of the tunnel was destroyed by the blast.
"We lost about 200 feet of tunnel, so we're at 360 feet of intact tunnel. But when we're done we'll extend a concrete portal on both sides so we'll gain some with that. We'll have about 450 feet of tunnel when we're done."
• Contact reporter Becky Bosshart at bbosshart@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1212.