The three tunnels are at Slocan, Greenwood and Warfield, BC. All three were highway tunnels. The Greenwood and Warfield tunnels were built to carry Highways 3 & 3B, respectively, under CPR lines, while the Slocan tunnel is a hole in a mountain to carry Highway 6 through.
Coordinates given are at the Warfield tunnel.
Three abandoned highway tunnels
SLOCAN
The road between Slocan and Silverton was built in 1926-27, before heavy construction equipment existed. Blasting the rock bluffs had to be done by hand-drilling.
L.H. Rawlings of Nakusp was the contractor and Walter B. Johnstone the superintendent. Johnstone recalled that at the time it was considered just about “the heaviest piece of road construction ever attempted in this province.”
The most remarkable feature was a tunnel through the bluff a little north of Slocan, built by subcontrator Ed Pearson with a crew of about 25. Johnstone said it was not part of the original design, but blasting near one of the portals carried away everything expected of it — as well as the road bed.
“It was then that the decision was reached to relocate the centre line to include the tunnel,” he wrote decades later.
A new road built in the early 1970s bypassed the tunnel, but it’s still there, not far from Springer Creek Forest Products’ parking lot. The bluffs nearby are a favourite spot for rock climbers.
WARFIELD
Erected in 1932 as part of the Schofield Highway between Trail and Rossland, this tunnel has been a relic longer than it was actually in use.
In 1952, two boys found a bomb nearby consisting of 30 sticks of dynamite and a detonator in a cardboard beer carton.
They didn’t know what it was, so they took it home — to the horror of their families, who called police
“Had the bomb gone off, it is quite likely it would have demolished or badly damaged what is known as the tunnel between Trail and Annable and cut the rail connection with Warfield and Rossland,” the Trail Daily Times reported.
The tunnel was abandoned when the highway was re-routed in the 1960s. It inspired the name of the Tunnel Pub across the street.
GREENWOOD
In 1913, a single-lane road tunnel was erected under a railway trestle to link Jewel Lake and Grand Forks. According to the Greenwood Heritage Walk brochure, it was used until 1964, when replaced by a two-lane tunnel to accommodate the present Highway 3.
The old tunnel was buried under the new one until the latter was abandoned and removed in 1993. The earlier tunnel was uncovered and given to the City of Greenwood to preserve.
To combat the graffiti that soon covered it, then-mayor Arno Hennig painted the flags of the world on it. It took him two years to finish, and the Tunnel of Flags — with 210 of them on it — was officially unveiled on April 27, 2000. It’s located on the Trans-Canada Trail.
From Nelson Star
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